Sting
by vague.poppyseed
Summary: An improbable encounter turns two lives topsy turvy and the consequences are dire. Alternate timeline, Sasori lives after the final battle. SasoriHinata
1. Death

Sting

Not really much to say except that I'm borrowing the characters and the basic Naruto universe from Masashi Kishimoto, but with a few timeline alterations and a different place where Sasori does in fact live after the battle with Chiyo and Sakura.

Enjoy.

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**He wasn't dead, even though he should be**.

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He wasn't dead, even though he much rather would be, even though he by all natural causes should be. But he wasn't. Chiyo-baa san had left him alive, whether it was by mistake or the loss of will to kill her grandson, he didn't know. But she'd left him alive. He was still breathing, albeit shallowly and slowly, and he could still twitch his fingers.

They'd left him on these battlegrounds to die, amongst the rocks. Left him there for animals to carry away his internal organs; synthetic skin to crack and dry, wooden limbs to rot without their protection. Between the puppets that were his parents, every time he breathed in or out, he felt the blades. Clean, sharp and deadly, they still failed giving him a desirably quick death. The sun over him was dying slowly, casting dark oranges and smears of light red across the once barren, clear sky.

Blood welled from his lips and down his chin, throat to the ground as time slowly eclipsed into a stand-still, where he not so patiently awaited his death. Time melded together to create a slowly passing death; like thick sap over rough bark, dripping so slowly.

Sasori blinked once or twice in the next few minutes, wondering why it was taking him so long to die. He could still breathe. His fingers were cold, but could still move. His heart was still pumping. He waited for the grim reaper, or blank blackness, or fire, or demons or angels. He looked up and squinted, waiting for an entity of some sort. The sun hurt his eyes and warmed his face.

Time passed with the speed of an irregularly slow and wounded slug. Pain rose and fell in soft no singular pattern of waves. He waited.

The blood dried. The sun went down completely. He was cold. But he could still breathe, his heart was still beating, and he was still in vague pain.

His vision went fuzzy, like a ripple in water and things started to blur out. His senses dulled and began to go limp, dead. _Am I finally dying?_ Even still, he was not afraid of death but rather the wait for either this life or the next, if there was indeed a next. Sasori hated being bored or exasperated. Perhaps the worry for no amusement or lack of to-do list would only be in this life, for there was no entity of any sort, or special light for the next life as so many religions preached on about.

Sasori would have scoffed if he could.

The soft crunch of gravel underfoot well trained feet caught his attention and his failing senses snapped awake as if from only a light daze instead of looming death. A soft gasp that could not be contained out of sheer surprise was heard and Sasori's eyes roamed in his head, not seeing this unseen specter of feet and voice.

The crunch of gravel sounded closer now, approaching in a hurry without worrying of small stumbles and unbalanced slipping down the steep decline of the rock face. His vision was going again and he blinked rapidly, urging it away. His eyes locked on a pale figure clad in an armor of a thick lavender jacket and blue pants that stopped above pale, pale ankles. His eyes traveled up to try and see a face, but the lack of light made it difficult. He only saw pale, pale skin and dark hair swept into short strands.

A dull roar resounded in his ears, pulsing with the blood still flowing slowly in his veins and his vision tunneled. At the edges of his fading sight, crisp, whiteness greeted him. Sasori felt his heart slow. He felt the world collapse into itself and rebuild from its ashes. He felt at ease, for some strange reason and he wondered, while the figure came closer, hair twisting in the wind, if this was what the prelude to death felt like. Maybe it felt similar to rebirth.

He watched as the face of the unknown person came closer until he could make out some vague features, a nose, lips, ears and eyes the color of snow in a morning sun. No one he knew had eyes the color of snow, a tinge of odd colors swirling in and out like oil in water. Maybe this was a specter of death that had happened upon him. Maybe there was a next life to worry about. Maybe this was a grim reaper, or a demon, or an angel or something from the next dimension come to take him far from here.

The world ended again, but didn't reconstruct itself. His vision flickered out like a bad light and he exhaled softly.

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_The body knows it is alive. The mind flutters in and out of consciousness and doesn't know what to believe; logic or instinct. The soul resonates in different waves, seeking something it doesn't comprehend or understand, but it searches_.

Pain flaring up like a snake bite burning made Sasori's eyes snap open and contain a hiss of discomfort out of instinct taught to him for years, years and years. He was still alive. His heart was beating, stronger than it had been before. He was breathing deeper. He could move his neck and fingers.

He relaxed, seeing that his top half had been uncovered, stripped of clothing and bandages were wound carefully around him. The scent of old blood was suffocating. He could smell woodchips and burning smoke. His eyes could see the outline of a fire flickering and burning strongly. He moved his neck as much as it would allow him to, to observe his surroundings. He was in a cave with small stalagmites hanging over, water dripping down them steadily and roots hanging like ornaments from the high ceiling.

Next to him was a leather canteen of water, anpan cut in halves and a small bento. His cloak and shirt were nowhere to be seen and he was completely open to torture, or further wounds. There was at first, shock that he could open his eyes like a living person could, followed by confusion as to who would be around to keep him alive. Then, the last one that remained was frosty irritation that he was alive, still in pain and was probably hovering between life and death.

Sasori grit his teeth in response to the annoyance he felt and looked around for the idiot who get their fingernails plucked out, back flayed open and muscles melted from the inside with a special poison. Gratitude took a backseat to frustration and icy, murderous rage as he'd been willing and waiting to die. He couldn't see anyone so he closed his eyes and waited.

He could hear his heart beat strongly. He could hear his breath flow in and out. He heard the tiny, dull rumble of his muscles and blood.

Moments passed and Sasori waited before he hear the soft pad of sandal clad feet approaching and soft breathing, so quiet that he had to strain to hear it. He waited, feeling the transparent presence come closer.

His eyes snapped open at the right moment and he stared with blank eyes at this person. Female, pale, pale skin and dark hair. Eyes the same shade as snow in the morning. She had small hands; she'd been carrying his aforementioned missing clothes and a small hexagonal jar that smelled strongly of soothing herb cream. "A-ah you're a-a-awake, ji-san," her eyes lowered from his face to the floor as she crouched beside him.

The jar was placed next to his head and she fiddled with the hem of his _folded_ shirt. His cloak was folded neatly, pressed well. They were smoothed out next to him as well.

"Y-You were a-ah um in-injured s-so I ah…" he stared silently. Her speech manner was acceptable, higher class than simple slang but she looked timid so her stuttering was not out of stupidity. A notable quality. Few people these days were hardly worth a word, for all their incessant babbling.

"You often take care of people you can't even bear to look at?" frosted snappiness reared its head and bared teeth at this slip of a waif who dared keep him alive when he'd nearly, nearly died. He'd felt peace for all of five passing seconds before it was swamped with pain, discomfort and thoughts of a living, highly intelligent and logic driven person with basic immortality.

She wet her lips. She bit her bottom lip, "I-I um…just don't…"

Sasori waited. By nature, he was not a patient person, but if this little bobble headed creature proved to have some intellect beneath those uncomfortable stutters and an obvious case of jitters, maybe he could be a tad more patient. Maybe he could forgive her for bringing back to life. Maybe thoughts of continuing to live a bored, jaded life would sink away for a little bit.

"There are um…u-u-unnatural ch-changes to your….body and I-I don't want to h-have sympathy…" her voice grew smaller, but with less stutters.

She didn't wish to give sympathy; perhaps she was a naturally sympathetic person but didn't want to be. Sasori lowered his voice as well, as though they were conspiring against an enemy, "Do you receive unwanted sympathy and attention?"

She bit her lip and twisted her hands in her lap. "I-If I'm u-uncomfortable with it, then I imagine others would be a-as well."

Hm. Frosty annoyance went down a notch; had she been even the slightest bit stupider, he really would have lopped her head off once he could move. She was given a temporary pardon. For now.

There was a silence then, because Sasori was beginning to feel weary, and the chance that he may die in his sleep was tempting. She spoke then, softer than before, "Are you hungry?"

He cracked one eye open to look at her impatiently, "No."

"Thirsty?"

"No." Sasori was no longer feeling generous, but like an animal trying to sleep in a cage only to be poked in the side with a stick. She sat back and watched him carefully, cautiously. He got the feeling that she was now waiting for him to fall asleep. A small character study showed that she wouldn't kill him in his sleep, and when she took so much trouble to drag his unconscious body into the cave and nurse him.

She waited for him to fall asleep, probably to change his bandages or rub in the strong scented soothing cream. He exhaled and relaxed. There was no peace, like there had been in death – an odd twisting spiral feeling of floating down a calm river, leaning into a soft, clean smelling breeze with quiet tranquility. There was mild relaxation of sleep, sagging limbs, heartbeat slowing and the dull drumming of blood pumping creating a self serving lullaby. His eye slid closed.

His mind added on thoughts of logic and reason, wanting to not be bored, but his body was exhausted and didn't heed thoughts of anything but sleep. His soul remained wandering.

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Specks of light invaded his dreams, chasing away colors and solid forms, dunes of sand whisked away and the pseudo sun fell at the sight of the real one rising like a god on the horizon of his mind's eye. Warmth swamped him and it made the blood beneath his bandages itch his skin.

His eyes fluttered and they opened slowly, creaking open like a door with rusted hinges. His throat felt two sizes too small or perhaps swollen two sizes too big, but he was parched either way. He couldn't lift his arm. The girl was slouched against the opposite wall, still asleep though her eyes moved rapidly beneath her lids.

She was coming into the realm of consciousness.

Sasori waited, still and silent because he was not one to yell someone awake, or simply wake them with a barking command (the exception being Deidara). She made a noise in the back of her throat and her body coiled back on itself before her arms stretched over her head. Her eyes opened in an alert snap and Sasori watched with the attentiveness of an experimenting scientist. Veins crawled from her temples to her eyes, bulging and grotesque but nonetheless intriguing.

"G-Good morning."

"Sleep well?" his question sounded lilting and the girl blushed a bit, realizing she'd been caught sleeping.

"Mm." She looked at him then watched as he watched the water canteen with intensity.

"I can't move my arms. Do you mind giving me a bit of water?" it sounded almost sincere but for the purposeful sneer in it to grab her attention.

"Ah! I'm s-sorry," she scuttled to him and kneeled beside his head, twisting the canteen's top open. She paused. "Um…I-I'm going to have to…p-put your head on m-my l-l-lap, so you don't ch-choke…"

Sasori watched her with half lidded eyes, observing her with a reptilian concern. She was unbearably predictable. He was placed on her lap, elevated so she could pour the water in, tipping the canteen steadily. As he drank, he knew that once he could move again, he would dig out her eyes and snip off the tip of her tongue with a dull blade.

She tipped the canteen too much and he choked. She flushed red in under a few seconds and stuttered out a hundred different apologies while she wiped the excess water off his chin and throat.

He was definitely going to slice her eyes out of her head, seeing as she couldn't even use them properly.

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End chapter one

Next time, introductions are made, Hinata speaks softly and Sasori is finally feeling generous


	2. Story

Sting

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**It had been so long since he last told someone a story. **

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Sasori was left to his own devices for the day. As if there was anything for him to do, he was very nearly paraplegic from the neck down until he was fully healed. She left him the water canteen with a bendy straw sticking out of it. He wasn't thirsty, or hungry. He was quite bored, however.

He studied the cracks and crevasses of the cave and watched a spider pick its way over the floor, or a lizard scamper up the wall of the cave. There was nothing to his thoughts except questioning why this waif was helping him without any need to because he saw the sign of her village. What could she possibly want in return for her so called kindness? Knowledge of the Akatsuki? Knowledge of his techniques or homeland? Or perhaps she needed someone taken care of.

His thoughts eventually wandered to what would happen to him next. Keeping those two at bay had been his duty and he had hopefully done so long enough for Shukaku to have been extracted from its carrier. If the mission was a failure, then Leader-sama would kill him in quite a horrendous way. He wondered if ANBU were searching for his body, and if not yet, then when they began their search, they would find him and take him into custody. He thought that was enough reason to slice open the girl's belly and roll her intestines out with chopsticks if that happened.

Soon, she would return to feed him and keep him company for a few hours until she'd have to return. The sun's brilliant lime green and yellow display faded to an orange-red soon enough and clouds rolled lazily across the sky.

Vaguely, he noted that while their odd companionship had been established, rather the wounded and the caretaker/nurse, they did not know the others' name. His chest expanded in a quiet sigh.

The telltale odd crunch of gravel and rock alerted him to the girl's approach (was she really a ninja?) quite loudly to his trained ears. Sasori waited until a disjointed shadow danced on the wall of the cave since he still couldn't lift more than his neck. Maybe if he didn't feel so fatigued and irritated, he wouldn't have felt the need to needle her with uncomfortable questions. Sasori blamed a jaded life and being old.

"Was it awkward making an excuse? Say something perhaps about a puppy you needed to take care of?" Sasori was known for sarcasm and honing in on a sore spot and prodding it with a white hot poker. She approached without saying anything in return and Sasori narrowed his eyes; she kept him alive to _bore_ him to death on the inside.

He heard it then. What those earlier odd footsteps over the rocks had been. The little girl had gotten herself a wounded leg. He could plainly hear her limping and dragging the toe of her sandal every other step to help alleviate the pain. He craned his neck to the side to then wordlessly follow her pained progression.

He said no words for a while, as did she while she bent down in a wobbly sort of way, unsteady as though her bad leg would suddenly give out and she'd fall to the side like a cut tree. She lay out food, her weapons, another hexagonal jar of strongly scented herbs that made his nose sting and a book. Sasori's hawkish eyes narrowed on the book and wondered why the hell this little girl had gotten the gall to give him some sort of entertainment that he wouldn't even be able to enjoy.

She turned and slid down the side of the cave, opposite of him. She stared at him with dark circles beneath her snow eyes, as though someone had taken charcoal and drawn on her. Her body language said 'kill me now God. Just do it.' She swayed unsteadily and her bad leg was off to the side, a bulge of bandages on her calf and ankle.

Sasori, being old and jaded and bored and nearly fully paraplegic spoke then. "Loved the bendy straw."

"Did I bend it enough for you?" she spoke softly with some hint of spite and Sasori's brows raised a hair.

Interesting. The girl had a tongue and she could use it without looking like a ninny. She was a bit snappy right now too. "Hm. Bad day?"

Her lips thinned and she looked to the side. The condescending tone got under anyone's skin, that and the way his eyes lazily observed their victim with lizard-like quality. "What's wrong with your leg?" if he could, Sasori would have gently picked her wounded leg up and stroked it with tender care, before pinching the nerves of her ankle and running his chakra armed nails down her calf. "Did you slip?" his tone was soft and sympathetic.

Her shoulders tensed and she bit her lip. "T-Talking down to someone who c-can walk while you can't r-really speaks."

Sasori's eyes narrowed in rapid session mode. "If you mean what you said, perhaps you shouldn't st-stutter."

And silence befell them again.

"W-we had a mission…and I was am-ambushed." She elaborated a bit later, after she'd started a fire silently.

Sasori waited impatiently for her story to continue. "W-when I got to the l-leader, he t-took a l-l-little girl h-hostage. I-I tried to t-talk him out of i-it b-b-but"- she let out something that sounded like a small bark or a dry sob.

"With your wonderful conversational skills I can't see why he didn't listen to you." Sasori was bitter and disgusted; she didn't have any worthwhile intelligence. You never talk a nin out of taking a hostage. You open up so many doors to hurt, to pain, to failure. Stupid, stupid girl-child.

She didn't talk anymore, curling her good leg up to her face and letting her hair fall to cover her eyes. Sasori listened to her cry softly, not bawling loudly and heaving but the sound of heavier breathing and hiccupping and tears falling to the ground in wet plops. Sasori was cruel. He knew he was and he preferred it that way. Instead, for once, jabbing at the open and bleeding sore on this girl with a white hot poker in amusement, he didn't.

He gave a small mercy and didn't ask her what happened in that soft voice he could use.

He listened and stared at her silently, observing her trembling shoulders, shaking frame, tears that winked up at him like morning dew drops. The sound of her voice cracking and falling like that was like some terrible accident. He wanted to close his ears to shut out the sound because it annoyed him and grated on his nerves. He couldn't move his hands or arms.

He was forced to listen to the sound of someone else's agony.

"I-I-I w-_watched_ her bl-bleed to d-d-death," her voice was muffled in her knee and dry from all her sobbing. "I o-only watched a l-little girl bleed on the gr-ground, sh-she was s-s-so small."

Sasori felt a snarl coming up. Watching her cry and sob and mourn the loss of a girl's life which was undoubtedly blood on her track record was not as fun as it should have been.

She hiccupped and curled in on herself, bad leg still bent at the knee on its side. He listened to her continue to repeat through her incoherent babbling and crying, 'I watched', 'I watched'. He didn't know how much time had passed before she sniffled until she fell asleep in an awkward position against the cave wall.

Sasori looked over at her, part of her now reddened and swollen face showing through twisted strands of tear streaked hair. She was not made to be a ninja. Ninjas did not cry because of casualties, especially those they didn't know. She was pathetic; she had no hard shell around her, no intelligence to hold an interesting conversation and no true physical aspects that were remarkable besides her eyes.

The puppet master rebuked himself for sleeping in earlier because of sheer laziness and not wanting to run circles around his own head as a form of entertainment. He was no longer tired after watching her little fit. He had nothing else to do, not even rest his eyes, and so the only occupation to keep him entertained was to watch her sleep.

Sasori observed her small nose, large almond shaped eyes, her ears that peeked out like a storybook's elves' behind her and her neck tendons. He made sure to keep away from pomegranate kissed lips.

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She awoke in small stages. First, rapid eye movement, then a small stretch of lazy arms and legs and the alerted snap of eyes opening wide with veins going out like tree roots from her temples. Sasori refused to disclose even to himself that he was so incredibly bored and exasperated with life in general, that he had begun to memorize her waking stages.

Her eyes locked on him. She looked confused, perhaps she'd forgotten why she'd come here. She blinked and the veins retreated. She blinked again and her eyes widened before she turned to the mouth of the cave with a muffled gasp.

It was well past dark. The sun had long ago set. The girl had undoubtedly already broken her curfew. She used the cave wall to grip and hoist herself up; try to anyway as her bad leg, now stiffened and cold, wouldn't cooperate. She bit her lip and slid back down. She was at least that smart to figure that walking back on a bad leg was worse than staying here and resting it.

She bit her lip and worried crease went between her brows. Sasori broke the silence because he was bored after staring at the girl while she slept. "Your headband says a Leaf kunoichi," he stated it in a way that it could've been an odd out of context question.

"Y-Yes?" she questioned it herself with a confused look on her face.

Sasori looked over at her with bland eyes half-lidded with reptilian contemplation in them. "Tell me about yourself."

She blinked.

Sasori quelled the loud sigh resting still in his chest, ready to escape. "Your name, what you like to do…introduce yourself to me properly."

She opened her mouth but closed it again and looked off to the side. "M-My name is Hinata. I-I'm a chuunin and I-I have two best friends…"

She spoke of her team cell. Talked about fishing with a boy and his dog, observing butterflies and constellations with a silent unspoken team leader. She spoke of a red eyed woman who she thought of as her surrogate mother; never really having seen or knowing her birth mother. She spoke of what their first reactions of each had been; a weak girl, a loud idiot and a weird quiet kid. Hinata went on to say that they became close after a while, becoming close friends who came together as a team without knowing how or when it happened.

Hinata would not however, say what her last name was. She was locked tight about any information as to who her family may be.

"W-What about you?" her soft inquiry caught him from musing about his old team cell days.

"Hm?"

"U-Um…name, h-hobbies…"

Sasori looked up at the roots dangling above him like spider thin fingers. "My name is Sasori and my homeland is far, far from here. My hobbies include making toys."

The girl kept her silence but stared at him inquisitively. Ah. She wanted a little story. How cute.

"Where I come from, you can see all the colors of the sun rising and setting. There are no trees like in Konoha. They are naked, twisting things with no leaves and they are bleached from the constancy of the sun." It was safe to give away such information because the Sand village, the Rock village and a few other villages of less importance scattered here and there had somewhat similar climate conditions.

"The air is not clean and freshly watered like here; it is dry and crisp. It sucks all the humidity from you. The days are hot and sweltering, the nights are unforgivably freezing. Rainy days are few and far between but there is the monsoon season and it floods everything. Walls constantly have to be constructed around crops and the city."

He stopped and he didn't know why. "D-Do you miss it?"

The redhead blinked and stared up with a slight frown on the corner of his lips. Moments passed and he didn't answer.

Perhaps she'd sensed the odd stop and refusal to answer her question because she asked another inquiry. "A-Ah what about y-your hobby?"

"My hobby."

"Mm…m-making toys." She sounded like she was blatantly mocking him in a timid way she could only claim as hers. "W-What sort d-do you make?"

Hm…she was playing the same game he was. The chess pieces were moving and being knocked down but neither of them was really getting anywhere.

"Many different sorts. Metal work, wood, rock…I find natural materials to pass the time."

"Ch-children's' toys?"

"Hn…depends where you draw that line."

She bit her lip and there was a light blush high up on her cheeks. Sasori rose his brows. "I-I may be o-out of line…but c-could I, wh-when you're better…watch?"

Sasori looked back at her silently, watching her twiddling her small thumbs and curl her little toes in, bite her lip and look everywhere but him. "Watch me make something?"

She nodded, still red and fidgeting. "Do you have so much confidence in your nursing abilities that you think I will make a full recovery?"

Her spine snapped straight and all embarrassment habits vanished. "N-Never mind." She closed up in a little nutshell of hers and wouldn't speak any more.

_Amending this…would probably be best_. "I am not trying to belittle you."

"I-I know."

_Really, is that why you sound so unfriendly?_ "I didn't mean to strike a nerve."

"Y-You didn't. I-It's o-okay."

Sasori watched her curl in on her body. Like a little armadillo. "Come here."

She blinked. "W-What?"

"Come here, I want to tell you a story." He said it so plainly and frankly in that soft, sweet syrupy voice of his that she was side blinded.

"I-I am fine where I am."

Sasori clucked his tongue. "Humor me."

She sucked on her bottom lip before limping over to him, sitting beside him. "Lay down."

She gave him a suspicious eye before obeying slowly. Her hair got on his shoulder and mouth. His hand gripped hers; limited movement surprised her when he caught her smaller, childish hand. His thumb went over her knuckles and he began to tell a story.

He wove a tapestry of words and mental pictures of golden sand that was made from sun-dust, a black horse made of nightmares and shadows and a giant scorpion that had snipped the umbilical cord of the world when it had been birthed.

It had been so long since he'd last told a story.

The girl was looking at him with large snow colored eyes and a look of awe. "Th-that was beautiful."

Sasori made a vague noise of agreement in the back of his throat. "C-can you t-tell one m-more?"

He looked over at her to snap that he'd been generous enough thank you, but made the mistake of making eye contact. "One more. That's all."

She nodded like an excited little girl.

Sasori of the Red Sands opened his mouth and told a story full of crooked winged angels, humans and empty glares from the gods watching them.

As he told them to her; he found that he had never had such an attentive listener.

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End chapter two

Next time: Hinata returns and gives Sasori physical therapy, Sasori muses on the past, the present and feels incredibly old


	3. Dream

Sting

(A/N)

_Spammish Rice_ asked a relevant question for the story, and so I don't have to repeat myself when others ask it, I'll answer it here instead of a PM (sorry Spammish).

_What was she doing by herself when she came across Sasori? _That, in case point can't be answered properly as this story is mostly form Sasori's POV, old puppeteer though he is. It will come up later, so enjoy until then.

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**He dreams of desert flowers, sand and snow. **

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The girl had a bad habit of saving someone and then not returning for a few days on end. Sasori thought of nastier ways to punish her when he could move again for such mistreatment. Using an ice pick to break away the bone of her kneecap, cutting her ears to points, twisting her hair up and burning it. Sasori found ways to keep himself occupied.

However, with such thoughts of torture involving the girl with snowy eyes also conjured up the now familiar haunting image of her weeping. There was no ache in his chest, where his heart was. There wasn't a churn in his stomach. It was just…unthinkable and distasteful to think of torturing her when he thought back to her retreat in mourning. It would at first bring a nonexistent smile to his face, but then red puffy eyes and quivering lips and a blotched face would make him frown discreetly at the corners of his mouth.

Asinine thoughts were never good ones. Being old and worldly-wise, Sasori knew this as well as the back of his hand. The puppet master took this into effect and banished all silly thoughts of an even sillier girl. His thoughts turned to ANBU.

Where were they? These hunters of the missing nin should have found him long ago, if someone had indeed sent them out after him; an S-class missing nin with a record of laboratory experiments and the murder of his own Kazekage long ago.

Sasori wondered if these charges had worn off yet; it had been a long time and all charges would probably be neutralized by now. The thought made him feel old. The medic ninja girl; Sakura, a powerhouse of erratic and raw power hadn't really known who he was, only Chiyo-baa san had. Suna nin weren't near. If they were, if any capable ANBU was near, he would have been found already.

Thinking of ANBU made him think back to his days in Sunagakure; his homeland, birthplace. He hadn't left because he had wanted to. He'd left because Chiyo-baa san had discovered his lab, his experiments, the dark secrets he'd kept hidden and unleashed Suna's fury upon him. He did miss it. The girl a couple days ago had blown off the dust of memories of sand and sun.

He did miss Suna, not terribly perhaps, but enough to reminisce.

Chiyo-baa san had held in him in such high regard before, proud of him even if he didn't get along well with other children. The children who asked questions and needled hurting places with innocent smiles. He didn't miss his childhood. He was too old and sagely to think that his childhood would ever come back to him.

He did miss the dry heat. He missed hot golden sand blowing in consistently changing dunes that rose and fell in pattern with the wind. He missed the sparse, but beautiful and colorful desert flowers. He missed the tyrannical monsoon season that washed away all the heat in a moment, for then and only then you could appreciate moisture.

Hn. Exhausting, these unwanted memories. Just like his unfaithful nurse.

Sasori closed his eyes to dream of sand, desert flowers and snow.

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"S-Sasori-san. Sasori-san…" it was as quiet as leaves speaking. Sasori opened his eyes and mused that her leg must have healed because she didn't make nearly as much noise when she came stampeding this way. She shifted back when he gave her a frosty glare. "Um…I b-brought anpan…bento and ah…water."

Sasori gave her a blank face. She bit her lip and shifted a bit. "C-Can you move…?"

Sasori felt irritation raise its snorting head. "Do you want me to do a trick of some sort?"

She winced, ducked her head, "I-I m-meant so I d-don't have to f-f-feed you." Her thumbs twiddled in her lap.

Hn. "My neck, my hands." Nothing had changed, but his spine wasn't in as much pain.

The girl frowned and blinked once, twice before bulging, grotesque veins rooted outwards from her temples. Her eyes searched silently. "Mm…ah it'll take a little long than I thought…" she meant to say it to herself, but Sasori heard.

"Is my situation grave good doctor?" his snarl was more apparent than he'd have preferred. She winced visibly and the veins vanished.

"A-ah not really…y-you suffered s-some damage to y-your sp-spine but um…it's not too bad and i-it'll be better l-later…" the veins reappeared. "Um…some of your ch-chakra v-veins are r-ruptured s-so it will take l-longer for t-them to h-heal properly."

Sasori frowned a bit. Some damage to his spine and ruptured chakra veins? Chiyo-baa san had purposely not killed him outright, but had wished him a slow death? Vengeful old woman.

There was silence, on her part because she thought he was letting his injuries sink in and he because there was nothing more to say of the matter.

It didn't last when she asked him something else. "Are y-you hungry?"

Sasori thought of it. He hadn't eaten in more than a few days partially because he was used not having to eat much. Also partially due to the pathetic fact that he was being fed like a pet. Being alone without entertainment left Sasori feeling itchy. "Feeding time dearest master?"

The girl cast him a weary look.

Sasori, feeling lazy gave leeway for her. He let her lift his shoulders up with shaky arms and heave him onto her lap. "B-Bento or an-anpan?"

"Bento." He liked watching her squirm like a worm on a hook. It was amusing.

As expected, like clockwork, she flushed red and nodded before taking out the cloth wrapped black chopsticks. The bento box was opened to reveal rice balls with umeboshi, grilled chicken with some sort of dark sauce and pickled vegetables. Her nose wrinkled a bit, twitching like a rabbit's did out of nervousness.

Delicate hands precariously balanced chopsticks with graced ease only practiced by those of privileged upbringing. A slice of chicken dipped in sweet sauce was lifted to his face. Sasori opened his mouth and the girl, blushing, deposited the food. Sasori chewed and looked at a rice ball. Hinata bit her lower lip and, setting the chopsticks aside reached for a rice ball to hand feed it to him.

Sasori felt irritation run through him.

Being fed by another person was degrading enough, but to be fed by hand like some table scrap begging dog? The indignity.

"Don't hand-feed that to me." He put enough disgust that she immediately retracted her hand as though the rice ball was up in flames.

"S-Sorry, I-I didn't th-think…"

Her apologetic face mocked him and his cruelty. "You never think." It was said with a tired sigh.

She bent her head in an attempt to bow as apology.

She fed him via chopsticks and they didn't speak during his meal.

There was some sort of strange awkward silence after he was finished. Hinata had placed him back on the cushion of what was black fabric and red clouds. Her thumbs twiddled. Sasori watched out of the corner of his eye as she fidgeted on the spot uncomfortably.

"B-Because o-of your c-condition…" she started before abruptly stopping and flaring a soft pink. Sasori stared at the newest color. "I-I'm going to h-have to g-give you ph-physical th-therapy."

Sasori gave her a blank stare. "You do know that my body isn't natural. You're not a certified medical nin. How do you propose this go over?"

"Ah, I k-know but um, I me-meant f-for your ch-chakra veins."

_Hn, more pain to look forward to_. "Do as you want."

She nodded and shifted a little closer. She blinked and bulging veins popped up like tree roots in a hurricane. Hinata lifted her left hand, tips of her fingers hot with chakra and touched his left shoulder softly. It was warm. Sasori gave her a long wary look. He is not used to being touched – has not been touched in a while.

She pressed harder, and his shoulder shuddered unconsciously.

Pulses of chakra from her fingers went out to his veins. Sasori could feel it from its starting point all through his body. His teeth nearly chattered.

Her brow had a crinkle in it and she bit her bottom lip in concentration. Her hand moved from his shoulder to the hollow of his collarbone. Her index and middle finger pressed down into it and a sensation went down his spine.

It was electric and skin chilling. He wanted to break all the bones in her little hand.

It was painful to a point where he had to bite his tongue to keep from screaming. It felt as though she was curling his spine on itself.

Mercifully, seconds later the pressure went away and the veins around her eyes softened but did not go away. "W-was it v-very painful?"

Sasori cast a cold reptilian gaze to her; ferocity she probably had never faced staring back at her in a proverbial cage. He could wring her neck right now. He feels like hell and she asks if it was painful. She deserves to have her liver broiled in front of her then force fed to her.

Her eyes widen and the veins vanish. Her hands go to her mouth and she apologizes a thousand times, because she isn't used to treating someone, because she isn't a professional. She kept her head very low and continued to bow to him, mumbling words to the cave floor.

She bit her lip and looked away before starting another fire.

It flickers when the wind blows in coldly. Hinata reached behind her to withdraw a thick blanket from a bulging brown package. "I-It's getting c-colder."

She spread it over him and he can smell the clean linen. Smoothing it out and tucking the corners under his legs, she speaks again. "U-Um…i-is it feeling b-better?"

There is no more pain down his spine. "If I say no are you going to try to curl my spine around my neck again?"

Her lips became a straight, thin line and she continued to keep her head down. "I-I won't b-be able to st-stay tonight."

What a pity. As she stands to leave, Sasori wonders if there are tears at the corners of her eyes.

----------

His hands are small. He feels smaller than many of the people passing through on the street and he wonders why. Around him is the scent of desert air, the smell of sun and sand.

Sasori looked around him; locking any words he may or may not have said away. The sand dunes around him blow peacefully with the wind. They are golden and white grained. People around him slowly walk out of his conscious and he is only left with the firmly built mud and stone buildings.

The wind whispers to him.

The buildings melt away, down into the sand and away from him.

Sasori already knows he is in a dream, but cannot seem to consciously rouse himself from this dream. He blames it on the nurse; making him sentimental and such.

The golden gleaming sand turns bleached under the sun and the twisted white trees begin to blacken as though burnt from its unforgiving rays.

The sun fades in its brilliance, the brilliance he hadn't realized he'd come to miss so much over the years. It becomes rather than a yellow white hot tyrant god, it metamorphoses into a lime greenish disk that floats in the now softly gray blanketed sky.

Sasori looks around him and sees this is not a desert anymore. He doesn't know where he may be. Snowflakes drift around him, land on his shoulders, on his eyelashes and hair. He seems to have gotten taller as well.

The now jaded, old puppeteer, who is no longer attention craving young child, stretches out a hand to catch the flakes. They land and melt as soon as they touch his flesh. _However different you are, you will always share the same fate_.

And from this, when logic cuts off his whimsy, Sasori wakes with a loud inhale.

His eyes snap open and he feels a headache coming. He can't rub his temples because his arms still cannot lift. It pulses at the back of his head to the backs of his eyes.

Sasori thought back to his vivid dream of golden sand and white trees and a shining sun god. His fist clenches and crushes a rock beneath it when he recalls the snow that fell, the snow that wiped out all traces of his homeland.

Outside, thunder rolls.

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End of chapter three

Next time a storm has arrived, Hinata confesses a secret and Sasori begins to heal.


	4. Ghost

Sting

(A/N) - probable misuse of medical chakra and quite a late update, another late update is most likely. Much thanks to all who've reviewed so far!

I also changed the summary to better match the story than the last one did.

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**Sasori doesn't believe in ghosts. **

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He couldn't sleep. Thunder boomed outside, lightning flashed and the rain was nearly as loud as the roaring thunder. He closed his eyes and pictured what Suna looked like right now. Flooded, and swamped crops, walls being pushed back.

He was not far from Suna, in the outskirts but not in the heart of it, like he had been when he'd been so much younger. He had remembered never sleeping during storms. He used to go out to his balcony under the cover of a cloak or raincoat and watch the storm brew and bubble over.

He wanted to see it.

The churning thick sand again; he had barely been able to take time to observe the place when he fought with that girl. He'd spoken to Hinata – no, no, no the girl, the waif, the little fool, his idiotic nurse as if he hadn't seen it in years. Years…centuries…decades…no, but he hadn't been able to soak in it. Soak in the surroundings of Suna as only a desert dweller could – a rattlesnake, jackal, camel…scorpion, could.

As the storm raged, Sasori pondered other things, not the freezing cold or the hunger pain or the irritability of not being able to sleep.

If she were an animal…what would she be?

He was of course not doing this because he was fond of the little pathetic ninja, but to use as a sort of intellectual leverage against her for his amusement.

She would be…a rabbit? They shared the same traits; wide eyes, easily frightened and a natural prey.

A deer? Quick footed, phantom in steps and at times clumsy…perhaps.

It came upon him suddenly. An annoyance. She was his caretaker and his annoyance. At times he found it hard not to reach out (not that he could, in his condition) and squeeze her throat until she clawed at his hands to breathe, not the rake chakra armed nails over her pretty little neck, not to pull her a little closer so he could smell whatever fragrance she possessed –

He blinks the thought away even though it leaves a rush to his head that's dizzying in its confusion. He had long ago forgotten the feeling of another's feel to his frame, the feel to match the sight of soft skin, lips, touch. All of it had been discarded as an unnecessary human trait he didn't need when he had flayed his body and become a puppet.

So why was it he regretted now? Why not earlier? Of course, he had missed the feeling. It was similar to sparring as it was an easy energy outlet. For pleasure, he traded it for others' pain and puppet building and the never ending quest for immortality.

Why was regret present now, when he most certainly did not need it around?

His fist clenched tightly, strongly and he can feel the muscles all the way to his shoulders.

Most probably it was the closeness of a woman that hadn't been so in years. That was all. A minor thing to have worried him…how stupid of him. The reaction of pheromones and other bodily chemicals…how stupid of him, really.

That was all it was.

He can feel his nails in his skin.

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She came the next day, in the late, stormy afternoon carrying food and she had a raincoat on. Sasori watched her silently. The girl must have gotten the goose bumps from his gaze, something different about it this time, deadlier and more watchful than ever before. Unforgiving and wrathful in a spitefully quiet way, the same way a cobra eyes out a victim.

She turned to him stiffly and her eyes stared right through him; wide, pale, intimidated, frightened. It was flattering and laughable considering his current predicament.

"S-Sasori-san?" she asks, frightened and unsure of what may be the cause of that dark gaze.

Sasori felt a stir in his chest. He has finally recognized her as some sort of threat. The wizened puppeteer cannot quite pinpoint what part of this shaking leaf is dangerous, what suspicious actions besides caring for him she has done; but the quake in him won't leave.

After she says his name, an automatic shutdown happens and a flawless mask falls over his face like theatrics. "Would you like to hear another story?" he whispered, honey sweet and heartbreakingly soft.

Hinata's eyes darted to and fro the ground, surprised by the sudden offer. "Y-Yes." She isn't sure of herself if she answered his question with another question.

"But um first I-I'll have to s-set us up f-first."

Sasori watched her set about to make a fire, set aside food and hitch a wadded up rainproof flap to keep from the rain coming in. She settled down for a story much later, uneasy.

Sasori looked over at her, sitting on the other side of the fire and shifting uneasily. "Uhm…I'm going to change your bandages a-and put some uh salve on you…" she blushed and Sasori watched her bloom red.

He didn't nod but stared at her expectantly, not having anything to say to her. She uncovered him his blanket and with small sewing scissors cut away his thick and bloodied bandages. A new roll of white cloth was taken out of a small medical bag she had at her side.

She bit her lip and moved behind him, lifting his head gently onto her lap so as to elevate him above the ground. A small bottle of fresh water and a hexagonal jar are also removed from the bag.

Over where the wounds where his parents had assaulted him, water is poured to help remove whatever infection is festering, because the wounds hadn't closed yet and they have been burning. Gentle fingertips rub the water carefully over places and she breathes on his skin as if it will help.

It doesn't, but he can humor her.

The lid of the hexagonal jar is unscrewed and her fingers dip into it generously before going to his wounds. It burns and the scents of the herbs mixed in are strong on his senses but he says nothing, biting his tongue because the quake hasn't gone away.

A soft press here and there, rubbing in softly with a phantom touch. Barely-there fingers ghost over his wounds.

She wiped her fingers on her jacket and screwed the lid back on the jar of remedy.

She leaned over him, not touching him but with only an occasional brush of her fingers as she rolled the bandages around his wounded torso.

He cannot feel a tickle or a tingle; his nerves aren't made for that anymore. So why does he feel like he has goose bumps every time her fingers brush over his ribs or near his navel?

She had to lean down then, to pay special attention when wrapping his nearly fatal wounds then. She stooped down and is careful, precise and on task.

Sasori can smell her. The scent of soap and female and a floral, soft scent.

She backed away once she had cut the strip and tied it off tightly, but not too tightly. "U-um I'm going to give you more uhm phy-physical therapy."

Sasori gives her a deadpan glare. "Isn't' this a disaster area for you?"

She didn't wilt and it surprised him momentarily though it didn't break through. She smiled a little, "I-I've read m-more on it and I'm going to have to s-start a smaller p-place to w-work at first."

He gives her no reaction, and so she wilted a little. He rolled his eyes at her discreetly, even if he is quite a bit older than she. "Do as you will."

Gentle, firm and aiming to heal, her fingers trace up his wrist, but he kept watch on her eyes. Thin veins popped under the thin veil of white skin, bluish green and freakish. They are not endearing but the hand she is not cradling, feeling, twitches and wants to idly trace the veins like lines of a map.

Her fingers trace up his wrist and to his elbow, following the directions of his veins, twisting together and tracing back softly. A press at the base of his wrist, then to the bend of his elbow. Chakra buzzes like electric waves, startling and not unpleasant but foreign.

She continued the same process over and over, and Sasori loses track of the time, not noticing that the rain is louder than before, that the thunder is distant, that it is pitch black out.

She stopped suddenly, slowly and looked over at him. Her brows are furrowed with concern and the grotesque veins hadn't gone yet. "D-Does anything hurt?" she is in her professional nurse mode and there is not any room for timidity.

No, there is a quiet languorous moment of tranquility. His nerves are sighing and lax, as is his mind at the moment. "Not yet," he says it with a soft glare. He blames his crankiness on mistrust and old age.

She nods, lips pursed tightly together and she moves to his other arm. Soft presses and gentle touches, chakra swells along his wrist to his elbow. Sasori's red eyes droop but do not fall completely. In relaxation, he is not completely at ease with the thought of someone touching him – even if it be this incompetent little girl who couldn't be a ninja properly.

Her chakra swells and ebbs like the sea, and he can feel her breath against his arm and neck. Perhaps she is straining herself to keep it at a contained minimum to allow him comfort while doing her duty?

Only tiny amounts of chakra escape through her to him, to heal him, heal damaged chakra veins that are greedy and asking for more than they can handle at the moment. Keeping at bay the chakra sucking, she has to pressure herself to only let the bare minimum pass through.

Along the bend of his elbow, a fingernail trails solemnly, and tingles of chakra flow with it. Sasori's eyes snap wide open at the feeling.

Her brows are bridged with concentration and she's biting her bottom lip in concentration. Her eyes do not stray to him and she doesn't give him a sign that she knows he's watching her now. Honest and innocent open concern for his well-being made the quake tremble.

She shifted away from him then, silently observing him with white eyes that were circled with bulging veins.

"Any pain?" she whispered to him, fingers wringing.

"No," his voice was soft as well.

She pursed her lips and nodded a bit, before the veins faded. She breathed deeply, "Good."

Her eyes dropped to her lap before she sagged tiredly.

Sasori turned his gaze to the cave's ceiling silently. "Would you like to hear a story?"

"Y-Yes," she scooted closer without Sasori telling her to and it caused him to start in surprise. Her bangs were on his ear and mouth. Her breath ghosted over his flesh.

This time, he began it with a once upon a time, and it is a foreigner's story of a chrysanthemum becoming a princess of a kingdom, and it is not without its twists as the princess wilts and dies just as the flower she is does.

Somehow, in an unfathomable move he doesn't remember making first; his hand is already around hers. She looked up at him with large eyes, "C-could you tell me a-another um one?"

The old puppeteer had always hated taking requests, and he still does but some secret technique is in those eyes that force him to comply. "There once was a girl, far from here…" a girl who swallowed the moon to become the moon princess, but no one would believe that she had swallowed the moon until she'd been forced to cut her stomach open, and all they found was a melon.

Sasori turned to her after the end. "What is the moral of the story?" why is he asking for a moral from her? Why is it when she opens her once closed eyes to look up at him drowsily that there is a slight twist in his abdomen?

"N-not to be uhm greedy?" her answer is tentative.

He felt like rapping a knuckle against her forehead. "No."

She fell silent and for a moment, he thought she had fallen asleep. "D-don't bite more than you c-can chew?"

Sasori blinked. He hadn't been expecting that.

"No. Never take extensive unnecessary actions." If anything, preserving himself hadn't been as such, but somehow in a hollowed out way, the girl who had swallowed the moon and he had connected similarities.

"Mm," she agreed and burrowed into his shoulder. "C-Can I t-t-tell you a um secret?"

Sasori looked down at her. "What is it?"

"I-I wish I was m-more like the girl who had swallowed t-the moon." She whispered into his shoulder, "I…I want to b-be more like a g-girl who can take a chance."

Sasori was quiet, but then pressed gently, "Why?"

She sighed, shuddering while doing so and curled closer to him because at the moment, he had the most warmth. "Th-then I would be the s-sort of g-girl N-N-Nar…he would like."

They lapsed into a silence and her breathing evened out.

The hand that held hers tightened.

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Next time Sasori suspects a case where an answer will not be given and Hinata is cornered.


	5. Shinobi

Sting

(A/N) I'm so glad of all the reviews, and I hope this chapter helps to answer (hopefully not entirely yet) some of your questions, thank you all!

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**Sasori remembers she's a shinobi like he is, but not. **

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Morning came in soft stages of twilight colors. Sasori's eyes slid open slowly and he could barely register the gentle oranges and purple and the sun that came through the tarp when there is breath on his neck and hair, a small hand in his and the foreign feeling of a body against his. There is nothing to say to this.

Sasori turned his head slowly to look over at the girl next to him with half lidded red eyes. Artistic eyes attune to detail take in skin; soft and white as marble, a small nose and the curve of large eyes. She had earthly features that were not striking; save those eyes that reminded him of snow in the morning. Spasmodically, her hand jumped and clutched his in a nearly endearing childlike grip, her brows furrow and her lips draw down.

A nightmare…or a displeased dream?

His thumb went over the uneven bumps of bone, soothing her knuckles. She let out a soft sound and buried a little closer. A drying, muscle tightens in his throat and made it hard for him to breathe.

The sudden realization of his asinine action (both conscious and unconscious) are alerted and given attention to at the remembrance of the girl's wish to be more like the girl who so boldly swallowed the moon. She wished to change her self-image to fit another's expectations, a person he didn't know, a person he could have strangled with his bare hands without a good reason he could think of.

The sound of his own words bounced off the walls of his mind and it awakened an emotion he hadn't had so powerfully while near the girl.

His attention was back on her, she still asleep and unknowing of the chain reaction she'd caused.

She was still asleep so trustingly, cuddling closer even. Naïve, foolish and not endearingly so. He could reach out and crush her throat with a powerful grip, if he could move his body properly.

The question that should have never left his mind to begin with entered once more. Why was she here? A Konoha shinobi on Suna lands was not alien, per se as they had an alliance treaty, but why was she here caring for him?

Whatever spell or genjutsu or hypnosis she had cast was being lifted, because now things were clearer and with clarity his brain; a shinobi mind – filled with paranoia and suspicion flickered on. The girl was not here out of the kindness of her heart. She was a shinobi too, and he'd forgotten (?) it while under her care. She was not here to care for him so much as to ensure the information he held of the Akatsuki stayed alive.

She was shinobi just like he was, not on the same level by far, further proof of this came when she curled in. However unlikely the possibility, she was the same as he was. She was still a Konoha shinobi.

Sasori's firm, almost tender grip on her hand turned deathly serious and painful. His fingers curled and he heard her bones give a satisfying crunch the sudden pent-up frustration at both the girl and himself.

A feminine gasp of pain was heard, the small hand was forcefully tugged out his reptilian grip and he was suddenly staring at large white eyes surrounded by bluish green veins that glared at him distrustfully. The prick of a kunai at his throat alerted him how fast she could move.

It was fuel to his fire.

His eyes narrowed by a hair's width and he stared at her watchfully before speaking in a honey tender and sweetly concerned voice that was part paternal and part perilous. He could tell it disturbed her. "Did I hurt you? Come here, let me look at it," he whispered and she drew in protectively, curling up, but nonetheless taking the kunai off his body. She bit her lip.

"W-w-Why…?"

Hideous attraction, similar to a Venus fly trap's scent to flies and other insects, and it drew her to stay only a foot and a half away from him and not stab him. Dark red eyes the color of a sunset stared intensely back at her. Hinata knew this stare, and could only recognize it because she was familiar with it. It was the same way her cousin had looked at her most of his life.

"S-Sasori-san?" she tried it on for size.

Sasori flexed his fingers and felt his other muscles respond, stronger this time. "Why are you nursing me back to health?" it was not out of pure curiosity, he knew why but if he heard it from her mouth, coldly and smugly as a shinobi would – it would be incentive.

"Y-You were greatly i-injured," she blinked and stared at him. Sasori saw a muscle in her cheek twitch.

Sasori's eyes narrowed a bit more, zeroing in on her like a hawk's gaze to a duck, "There's no need to lie now Hinata," a murmur of disappointment and she reacted just as he'd expected – flushed cheeks and widened eyes.

"I, w-what do you? I mean…I-I…ah…" she fumbled for an excuse like a man in a dark cave.

There was no sympathy or merciful generosity. Sasori was world-wise and old; he knew better. "You can tell me." His voice dropped a decibel and became beckoningly perilous.

The hair on the back of Hinata's neck rose in response. She bit her lip and clutched the kunai, feeling a distinct ache in her unused hand, feeling it begin to bruise. The veins of the Byakugan hid once more. "I…" it was hard for her.

"You what?" he murmured softly, urging quietly, and he flexed his hand, feeling it all the way up his arm this time.

"I…I-I…." She bowed her head, because she couldn't look at him.

It was incentive enough.

His arm shot up, screaming and twitching violently from the pain it caused from not having moved in a long while. His fingers wrapped around her throat and she gasped, gagged at the powerful, much stronger than she had depicted him even when he could move. The hand with the kunai raised but his other arm strained and caught her wrist, quivering tremendously.

His nails dug in both her wrist and neck.

The veins around her eyes popped up again.

Her eyes were rolling back because he'd caught her in just the right place at the right angle with the right grip and she felt that she was already losing consciousness.

Her other hand clipped his shoulder and he was in even more pain, numbed but she was failing already. It was so easy, here he was, mostly paralyzed and he was crushing her so easily.

She was shinobi like he was, but not. Should he kill her, he would die from either Suna's law or dehydration, but if he allowed her to live, he would live to see the interrogation room or punishment by Leader-sama's hand. He didn't mind dying and with that thought, he pressed his thumb into her jugular. However…

If she died…if she lived…decisions, decisions…if she died…

Sasori squeezed her throat and she fell limp in his grip. He released her and she fell unceremoniously on his stomach, nearly knocking the air from him.

The veins around her eyes had faded, leaving white skin that didn't bulge abnormally. She was still breathing, though, and his other shoulder was in a great deal of pain, more so than his right, but he could still move his arms. The sudden rush of blood being circulated was dizzying and painful. Nonetheless refreshing though.

Sasori lay there, in the light of the morning that pierced his eyes.

He would wait till she woke, and she would tell him regardless what she was doing here. He flexed his hands and rolled his other shoulder, the one she'd clipped.

Sasori let out a breath through his nose.

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Hinata, even in sleep caused by suffocation, felt the vague sensation of pain, a tight feeling around her throat. Warmth on her back and her cheek was pressed hard against something uncomfortable. Her hand twitched and caught cloth.

Smooth skin traced the sledge of her cheek and an odd sensation tugged at her hair gently.

Hinata's eyes slid open slowly and her vision was blurry. Her eyes saw a hand, and on that hand were long fingers, and those fingers were twisting her hair, rolling it. It was a nice feeling, melancholy and soothing just the sort of feeling she'd gotten from her wet-nurse when she'd been a child. "Rise and shine," the voice Sasori; Akasuna no Sasori.

She inhaled sharply and jerked from the touch, remembering her place and who she was with. She rolled out of the way but her wrist was caught by his hand. He squeezed her wrist in warning.

"After all the stories I've told you, you can't spare one for me?" his voice was still roughly sweet. His patience was at an end. His grip tightened and Hinata yelped from the pressure. "What do you want?" his voice was no longer sweet, but a snarl even though his young face stayed angelic.

Hinata writhed beneath the powerful grip. "L-l-let g-go!" she twisted her wrist but his fingers dug in.

"Why are you nursing me back to health?" he prodded relentlessly, searching her for an answer.

"P-please l-l-let go," she whimpered when his nails began to dig into her flesh.

"What is your reasoning, kunoichi?" he hissed, red eyes shining and glittering with promise of violence.

"L-let go!" force was in her voice now and veins appeared around her eyes. Her other hand moved, bruised and aching from yesterday but still functioning, and caught his shoulder. His left shoulder took another glancing blow but Sasori ignored it.

"Why are you here, what is your reasoning?" he yanked her forward and his unoccupied hand moved around her other arm, twisting it and caught her ribs with a punch. She gasped and fell forward, closer.

She stopped falling and they were left nose to nose. Silence entered the cave suddenly. "Why are you here, _Konoha nin_?" he spat it out as though they left a bad taste in his mouth; foul and stagnant.

She couldn't answer him. She was here because she was a dedicated shinobi of her country. She was here because she wasn't a suspicious like character. She was here to gain trust and information if possible. She was here to heal him to send him to his death later if he confessed nothing.

He was right though. She wasn't here because she wanted to be. She wasn't here out of the kindness of her heart. She'd heard what he'd done to those people of Suna so long ago.

However, along the way of being wary, he was a storyteller who she could fall asleep to…and she was told by her Hokage and the council of Sunagakure to leave openings for him, but be on guard.

"I…" she still couldn't answer.

If he could have moved his entire body, Sasori would have used his puppeteer techniques to torture it out of her, twisting her veins and causing her nerves to be frayed, cracked her ankle, twisting her wrist, or just run a steady thumb over her bottom lip and whisper a threatening story in her ear while holding her close so he would be able to hear her rapid heartbeat.

Due to his still ruptured chakra veins, he couldn't use his technique and he couldn't move his entire body.

He dropped her wrist and she automatically scuttling backwards, staring at his face with wide snowy eyes surrounded by grotesque veins.

They stared at one another. The morning light caught their profiles and warmed their skins.

"Tell me why you're here, Konoha kunoichi."

The call of the command is something Hinata had always heard her entire life and the way he says it is just like her father. For the first time, Hinata disobeys directly.

She looked back at him in the eye. "N-no. I am a Konoha k-kunoichi and i-if necessary, should you d-do anything threatening again then I w-will use force." She raised her trembling chin a little higher to emphasize her point.

Sasori, despite knowing the absolute gravity of the situation, raised an amused brow caused by the use of her 'forceful kunoichi voice' and had he been in the mood, he probably would have made a snide, snarky comment to her about it.

She drew away from him and curled in protectively. She couldn't say or do anything else at the moment. Sasori cornered her and she isn't a good enough kunoichi to find a clever way out. "I-I…should go now." She rose unsteadily and looked over at him. "I'll…come back tonight w-with some m-more salve and bandages…" she twiddled her thumbs and wouldn't look at him.

The redheaded puppeteer knew desperation and panic and fear, and she stunk of all of those. He watched her with a half lidded gaze that was discreet in its meaning. She opened the tarp and light flooded the cavern. Bright and blinding, it was strong and dry and the air was heavy with moisture.

Sasori could see her wrist purpling from the distance he was at, and the way she cradled it carefully. Her form vanished in a few moments from view, and left in her wake was a pained shoulder, strands of black hair on his arm and her scent on his fingers.

Sasori thought about her. About the Konoha kunoichi, and the limbo-like phase she had set for him, he thought about what would come next.

What were her true intentions? Patching him up for his execution? Healing him for torture and interrogation about the Akatsuki? Or, perhaps, he would be nursed back to have a full recovery and then be immediately locked up in a jail cell in Suna.

He can't say for sure. He is old and tired of living – he should have crushed her throat, let her suffocate, or snapped her spine. He should have killed her. Thing is…he didn't. Sasori being old and world wise, preferred to not think too much on his decision to allow her to live.

He lifted his arms over him and flexed his fingers, hands and cracked them. He could've smiled. The girl hadn't been lying when she'd said that she'd read up more on the physical anatomy. He knew that his anatomy was unnatural, and she worked around it, figuring it out – she was intelligent. The old redhead puppeteer remembered how quickly she reacted earlier when she held a kunai to his throat.

His hands formed fists.

She was still a Konoha kunoichi – a law abiding one who was here on behalf of her country and duty, even if she was an attentive listener and intelligent.

She was not here out of the kindness of her heart, but because she was obedient and dutiful. She was here to make his guard slip, to heal him for interrogation or execution or persecution. She was going to send him to his death or imprisonment.

Sasori wouldn't really mind dying because he's old enough to have watched the world begin and end three times, has been through epic country wars, has seen the world through many different views, and he is…exhausted. However, his pride and vanity won't let him to just lie there and betray the Akatsuki, to die so easily at the hands of a girl, because of Chiyo-baa san, because of the medical nin girl.

Sasori's joints creaked when he rotated his wrists. He was going to kill that girl, because she was a shinobi like he was – but…he will kill her without alternately making her cry. Sasori stared at the ceiling of the cave with his arms still up.

He won't make her cry.

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Next time Hinata gives more physical therapy, Sasori is bound and feeling perilous


	6. Desertion

Sting

(A/N) Perilous – feeling dangerous. Here's a helpful internet buddy if you don't feel like looking through a handheld dictionary: **thefreedictionary (.) com**.

Hebi R's review made me laugh and ignited an idea. Listening to APC has helped quite a bit as well…

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**The act of desertion is something Sasori despises as much as his vanity and failure.**

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It was a bleak day, the weather stricken grey and dull and there was barely any warmth retained in the air. Sasori however, was anything but bleak and dull. He lay there, paralyzed, excluding his arms, but feeling dangerous and severe. He felt like a scorpion in shifting sands, awaiting his prey's doom.

The girl…the girl would pay, one way or another for the costly trespass and violation she created – there was no other way to deal with her but to take her life. Akasuna no Sasori would deal with her the same way as any other pest by complete annihilation. The hand at his side clenched spastically, checking that the nerves were healing and the chakra veins were healing themselves in a tediously slow process.

The redheaded puppeteer was plotting, in disgustingly dreadful key points that he would twist from her. Perhaps, he would snip her Achilles' tendons, twist her veins and dry her sinews, or even run a gentle, paternal hand down the side of her cheek before alternately crushing her throat and slicing open all her arteries to watch her bleed it out. However, whatever pleasure Sasori derived of the thought of seeing her in pain and killing her for the absolute sin she had done to him, the thought of seeing her crying made it ebb away like poison draining from blood.

It was infuriating and it made him even more incensed and horribly, horribly disgusted with himself. In the fact of the matter at hand, it was his fault for even beginning to allow his guard to slip like a mask from him, had he not been so careless this situation might have been avoided.

Withal, it was not all him to blame. Damn the small little waif who dared to care for him so clumsily, damn her for erasing and chalking up new boundaries between she and the old puppeteer and damn her for making things…difficult.

The redheaded puppeteer closed his eyes and brought up a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose, willing the headache away. He was too old to have to deal with this – any of it; the girl, being paralyzed and under the spotlight of a distantly observing Suna and Konoha.

Sasori could hardly concentrate on any plots once the headache began to settle in. The weather was bitter and he felt that it suited his taste at the moment quite well. He didn't know when she'd be back – if she'd be back. If she wasn't the one who returned next time, there would be hell to pay.

Sasori cracked his wrists and knuckles, feeling an all too familiar ache behind his eyes.

The question at this point was what would he do if she did come back? More physical therapy, of course, but what else? If that was all he wanted, then anyone besides her, and more capable would be much obliged. It wasn't the case though.

What could be done so she wouldn't shirk and flinch and get that hideous look of betrayal and mistrust in her eyes (again)?

A handmade gift to present to her as a sincere apology? Or perhaps advice on this…boy for whom she would swallow the moon for? Or…no.

He would have to start from square one and work his way up. Prod into dark corners and secrets hidden in shadows and in plain view, whisper sweet soothing nothings in her ear should she ever have such a downcast or upset face.

Perhaps, given enough time and concentrated space, he would tell her stories again, and he could hold her hand and with his other, now mobile hand, run fingers through her hair.

The age old missing Suna shinobi blinked away an image of a girl curled at his side, eyes drooping while listening to him. He understood what had to be done, and understood the tediousness of the next task, more so than the first time as he'd made his way from a sarcastic neutral antagonist, to a suicidal mission.

He had to work his way back up, and more.

--------------

By midday the girl had crawled out of whatever hole she had hidden herself in. Dark purple circles haunted her eyes and she carried about in a lagging way that showed exhaustion. Sasori took note of her headband, now tied around her neck instead of strapped to her thigh, and of the thick coils of rope in her arms.

He scowled minimally.

She approached and stepped in careful as a lamb in autumn. Her eyes, wide and white and frightened, never looked away from him while she set the ropes down and from a small bag over her shoulder, took out water and a box of food. He could see that she was gnawing on the inside of her cheek.

She looked away from him hurriedly and opened the water before sticking a straw down it. The food container was opened and she shifted, feeling his gaze.

Mending this would not be as easy as it was the first time mending her. He whispered softly, "I don't think, I believe, a sincere apology would quite…do the deed. Even so…I do apologize." He watched her shoulders stiffen and she looked at him out of the corner of her eye.

Her hands shook.

She swallowed hard and said nothing in return, keeping her hands occupied by rearranging the food and water, fiddling with the ropes. Her shoulders hunched when she spoke, "Y-You can't ap-ap-apologize s-sincerely." Her voice shook, but she persisted in it and her hands wrung the ropes. "I w-wa-was trying t-to help y-you."

Sasori felt brittle patience give way to an irate snappish comeback, "Yes, before I was going to the gallows. How terribly kind of you."

Her chin quivered but she remained resilient. "D-do not b-blame me f-for any o-of your p-past actions." She raised her head almost proudly and Sasori knew he would have respected the gesture more as a sign of backbone had it not looked so terribly awkward for her.

His voice lowered an octave and became syrupy, sweet and thick and nearly paternal, "You talk as if you are without past black marks, what do you call this little charade you put up, just for me?" his smile was forced.

Her eyes looked away and to the ground. "I…I didn't m-mean to h-hurt you." It was whispered and she looked so…

It made him want to strangle her, again. His words didn't come out the way he wanted them to. "It's self-righteous of you to think one such as you could hurt me."

Her lips tightened, "Th-then why were you s-so hostile?"

There was no answer to that. Sasori didn't look away from her profile. A tiny nose budding red, large white eyes, pale skin and dark, dark hair. She sniffled and turned away from him.

He was overcome with the inexplicable urge to run his fingers through her hair and whisper sweet things into her ear. He looked away and up at the crags of the rock ceiling. Such silly thoughts at a time like this – maybe he really was getting old.

A shift of clothing and whisper of hair and she was suddenly over him and had his hands numbed with some technique of hers. Her eyes glared with grossly bulging veins and the ropes were slung around his wrists and tied in thick knots. She gripped his wrists and pulled his arms over his head. The slack end of the rope was loped tightly around a jagged rock that stuck out from the side of the cave wall.

Sasori held his silver tongue back. This was a time for gaining trust and not hostility against the enemy who would hold him close only for a while longer. Her lips were a thin line, and her brows were furrowed. Spider thin fingers traced along his ribcage, ghosting an invisible path never taken and his chakra veins throbbed almost painfully. She sat next to him, her kunai pouch open and continued to press here and there with unprofessional fingers.

His heart jumped when she passed over his chest, startling the veins that crowded around the organ. The tips of her finger pressed in deep, here and there along his ribs and collarbone, working only his torso. Sasori watched her carefully. Her shoulders were tense and her entire posture screamed aggravation. He had descended so quickly out of favor.

Hair fell in front of her eyes but she took no notice of it or even of the sweat that beaded up on her skin. Her breathing had deepened to a point where Sasori mistaken it for asthma. Sweat collected at her upper lip and temples.

Unfortunately, for this circumstance at hand, along with a handicap of suspicion and aggravating betrayal, is his fault to begin with – even before he met the girl. Had he not been exhausted, he might have killed the pink haired girl and Chiyo-baa san. Had he let go of life much earlier, there would only be death and he wouldn't have been rescued and resurrected by her.

Not only this, but if he craned his neck to the left just so, and raised his chin higher, he could see the purpled outlines of the pads of his fingers and palm that encompassed her thin throat. Yellowing a bit, but most of the damage was covered by her headband.

He could hear her panting now, wheezing and gasping a little while droplets of sweat rolled languidly down. He watched her face flush from exertion, still poking and prodding but less so.

She stopped and sat back with aplomb on her haunches, breathing heavily and leaned her head against the rough and scraping rocks behind her. Sasori watched her carefully, feeling that shallowly buried predatory subconscious stir a little at the sight of a white, uplifted throat. Something else swelled up in his chest, like an overripe fruit; pungent and sickly sweet to the point of being nauseous. It bothered him to no small end.

It made his subconscious shriek in perilous warning and went against his nature, who he, being old and world-wise, knew was threatening to his less than comfortable but rather stable existence in being Akasuna no Sasori.

Her eyes closed and the veins retreated.

Such a pretty picture she made. A small aristocratic face – a small nose, large, shy eyes with bold eyelashes, high cheekbones and susceptible pink –

She was not beautiful. He had seen many beautiful women in his life, princesses, kitchen maids, kunoichi, wives of lords…she was not beautiful as they were. She was more flawed than they were. Her eyes seemed too large for her face, making her seem bug eyed and awkward; her lips were not the normality, her top lip being plumper than her bottom. Her features were singularly pleasant, but placed together made her particularly flawed and only adorable at best.

She was childlike in nearly everything about her. Her face, flawed and awkward made her seem more endearing like a child's doll, her manners were clumsy but polite and strained, her speech patterns were full of stutters but not nonsensical words and the way she still closed her eyes in his presence…

Sasori stopped himself and looked at her. She looked tired, exhausted with those half circles beneath her eyes and a drooping body lingo. He needed to mend this while she was tired, while she was unprotected with rice paper thin walls. He spoke with quiet precision. "By chance, would you still like to hear a story?"

She stiffened and looked at him with such eyes rimmed in red. "I-I don't w-want to h-hear anything from y-you." She said it testily, even with her stutter.

Sasori dropped his head back to the ground. "I see, what I did was that unforgivable?" sneaky yes, but going for her soft heart with small needles was best.

Her lips purse and she shifted uncomfortably, but she didn't give a verbal answer. All the same, he knows the answer.

_Yes_.

"You're too far away, come closer. I don't want to have to yell just to have a one-sided conversation." She didn't move and he can't move, but she looked at him with narrowed eyes. Sasori let out a timeworn sigh before fidgeting with his bonds. "If you won't speak and you'll only sit there as a mute, then at least feed me."

She said nothing in return and only came closer to open the bento box with chopsticks. She moved them closer to him and stuffed the small backpack under his head to give him a bit of leverage. Quickly, her hands worked to untie him. She scooted away as if he would catch on fire soon. She moved back to the place she had been before and watched him as careful as a hawk.

Sasori glared down at the chopsticks and food.

Failure was something he abhorred as much as his own vanity.

"W-Well? Aren't y-you going t-to eat?" Sasori could have plucked out all her fingernails for the tone she used on him – proud and condescending as if she'd figured him out. He had another small trick up his sleeve.

"I will, when I have better leverage so I don't choke on my water, or my food." He looked at her pointedly. "I could use your lap like I once did." She didn't speak, only stared as in not comprehending. "Well?"

She nibbled her lip. Nothing could be done of that and she was too kind to let him go hungry. She shifted closer and moved the bag away, instead hefting him up to her thighs and looking to the entrance of the cave. Veins crawled from her temples to bulge grotesquely. Sasori settled in and ate in silence.

He could smell her – the smell of lavender and something female and another something that was just the girl. He chewed quietly and swallowed before he cast his eyes up to her, seeing only the ledge of her chin and slope of her throat. Hair fell messily along her face. He reached up to brush it away, without impulse and only to test boundaries.

Her hand smacked his with a loud slap. She stared down at him, "D-don't t-t-touch me," she said with accusing eyes.

Sasori looked at her, "My apologies, I only meant to move your hair out of your face." She looked away. Sasori continued to eat, and when she saw he finished, she stayed only long enough for him to drink a little water before she moved away to the other side of the cave.

She packed and gave him but a glance before turning away and leaving.

Instead of thinking of ways to get rid of the sudden restricted boundaries, of getting her to trust him again enough o touch him willingly, of thinking of way to plan a grandiose escape from trial, Sasori's thoughts wandered farther away from all of that.

The sound of her hand hitting his…the frightened look in her eyes…the way her voice wobbled so…

Her rejection even was horribly imprinted. Rejected him as if he was horridly disgusting and volatile and would again hurt her at the drop of a dime. She was right to do so, proving to not be stupid because he was of the Akatsuki any way this was sliced.

But…his insides (existent and nonexistent) churned at her dislike, mistrust…avoidance…desertion from her. Wrath welled up like an aqueous disease in the veins at the mere thought of her abandonment.

Something that resembled a stab wound creased in his chest.

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Next time Hinata gives physical therapy, she has questions, Sasori has answers, and Sasori is torn asunder.


	7. Hate

Sting

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**He hated her, and the fact that he couldn't really hate her like everyone else. **

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His eyes stared blankly, almost unseeingly at the cave's ceiling. All the carefully built trust – as far as people as compatible as he and she could go, was wasted. He'd underestimated her distrust in others. The days passed without consequence and she didn't speak to him in careful stutters and a shy demeanor. Now, it was the clipped tones of a strange medic nin.

No one had taken her place – she had remained out of sense of duty and he had knowledge of her enough that he knew she was still frightened of him, now that he was getting better. However, something a rather dismissive, forgotten corner in his mind nudged him hazily. It nudged with such specificity that it disturbed him.

_Where had she gone? _

He didn't know. She had simply gone – chased away and replaced with a girl with no time for stories or passive bickering. Sasori cracked his knuckles. She wasn't coming back either, this much, he was certain of.

He looked in the direction of the cave's mouth to see a dying star. The sun read approximately five o'clock. He closed his eyes and heard her – a soft telltale crunch of gravel and rock sliding beneath sandals.

Her shadow loomed in the mouth, three times as tall as her true height. He opened his eyes when she sat down beside him, legs drawn under her. Her hair covered her face and he could hear that her breathing was uneven. Red eyes with the odd glaze of gold stared at her.

She unpacked his meal, a new bottle of water and unrolled a new blanket. He caught a quick sight of her face when her hair moved with her. White eyes surrounded by red skin, an irritated nose and teeth worrying her bottom lip.

She reached over and mumbled to him, "The spine today," he could barely hear her.

He felt chakra, warm at her fingertips press into his spine when she rolled him over without warning, trailing up his spine and over the odd dips of his self-made body. The chakra in his veins reacted and sucked at her greedily. She pressed at points here, and there and would at times dig in, or become so gentle he'd barely feel it.

There was no pain, but a feeling like a deep muscle massage.

Relaxing and floating, suspended in this nice place, he thought of how to rectify their previous situation…

She stopped and rolled him back over, saying something like it was enough for today, she didn't want to strain his veins.

She curled in on herself invisibly and he heard it. A small sniffle, a gleam in her eye…

Hunching shoulders…a nearly invisible quake in her body; a conscious effort to appear well made her stand out all the more.

He waited until he heard her try to inhale calming breaths. His hand slipped out and curled over hers; they were small and white and cold. She looked to him sharply and attempted to pull from his grasp. She revealed herself.

She had seemed to realize this, and bit her lip to withhold a lurching breath that signaled more crying. His thumb went over the bumps of her knuckles. "Shhh…sh-sh-sh," he pulled her shoulder with his other hand and she melted down to him. Her forehead against his chest. The time to amend broken trust – this would be as easy as trapping a rabbit with three legs.

Fingers through her hair; honey sweet, he called to her, "Now what's happened?" old age made him wise to these sorts of things and he knew what happened before she told him.

The boy whom she would swallow the moon for was not hers to love anymore.

She wept into his chest, as though forgetting what had happened five days ago and hiccupped her self-pity to him in half syllables garbled with tears. His hand held hers loosely, not tense and his thumb smoothed her knuckles, his other hand moved her hair from sticking to her face. Fingers long and artistic wiped away tears.

She sniffled on top of his chest and eventually, with soft coaxing and gentle fingers, she fell asleep.

Sasori stared at the top of her head. In this odd relationship – if one could even call it a relationship – who was more hot-cold of the two?

He combed his fingers through her hair and shifted her weight on him.

---------

Sasori felt something shift on him. His eyes opened and he looked right at white eyes, pinked from constant crying. She sniffled and looked away from him, lifting herself from him and scooting back a little.

She opened a bottle of water and lifted his head onto her thighs. "Here," she croaked uneasily.

Sasori drank a little and then lifted the bottle to her face, "I-I have my own…thank you," she added.

"Wash your face," he commanded softly, almost parentally and she bid his demand. He heard a few more sniffles. "Crying won't do anything." He whispered in a not-so gentle tone.

"I-I know."

Water dripped to the ground and he felt a few drops on the top of his head. "Then stop."

"I-I c-can't." She bemoaned and began to cry a little again.

"The boy who you would swallow the moon for won't do the same." He hissed, eyes narrowing by a hair, and she inhaled sharply as though she'd been slapped. "Understand now?"

She hiccupped. "Y-Yes," her head bowed.

Sasori was left in an awkward position. He knew that the situation needed to be mended but…he hadn't dealt with a crying female in years, since Konan didn't cry – period. He thought of a solution.

Clasping on hand between both of his, he tugged her down to whisper in her ear. "Let me tell you a story."

She shook her head, sniffling, still acting as though she'd forgotten what wrong had been done, which placed Sasori on a teetering balancing end. "It-It's too late f-for a story…"

"Then what about a bedtime story?" honey sweet he spoke, and she looked at him with those eyes. Something hollowed out a hole in his heart.

She slid forward and next to him, keeping her face buried into his shoulder.

With his fingers in her hair the old storyteller began. "In a place far, far from here…"

He told her of native Suna legends, those from Kumo and a few he'd picked up from foreigners. He spoke of horned horses who went to maidens, demons who disguised themselves as beautiful horses to lure unsuspecting milkmaids away – to never return from a breathing fog.

He also told her one of his favorites.

A girl in the woods came upon a wolf – feigning injury, the wolf beckoned the girl to help carry back to his den. He said he would repay her with wine and rice cakes for her good deed. When the girl carried the wolf back to his den and expected rice cakes and wine, the wolf devoured. Sasori was kind enough to not mention _how_ the girl was devoured.

As comfort stories, he told of a mountain that remained in peace because all the snow devoured the sound, he also spoke of how man was created, and an alternate version of the Sandman.

She never removed her face from his shoulder though he could gauge her facial expressions. She had long ago stopped her crying, but when he thought she was asleep she decided to say something. "You're w-warmer than I e-expected."

He raised a brow at the random change of subject, "Wood can retain heat," he mumbled, and wondered if he was going to have to tell her another story to make her fall asleep. His fingers ran over her scalp carefully.

"I ah…didn't m-mean it like th-that."

Sasori craned his neck to look down at her. She pressed her face tighter against his shoulder. "I-It still h-hurts."

The fingers in her hair jerked unexpectedly and an old feeling came over him – the need to move and slice and mince; he'd grind him up and feed him to dogs, dice his heart up and cook it. "It will pass." He responded neutrally despite his negative feelings in the matter.

She gave a heavyhearted sigh, "I-I know b-but…" she sniffled a little. "I-I mean y-you must've had someone y-you'd…" she seemed to feel uncomfortable about saying loved now, "S-swallow the moon f-for?" she went for his slightly detached and vague analogy.

He looked at her, staring up at him with those big doe eyes; white and opalescent in their reflective nature – intelligent and alternately childlike. She no longer cried – he'd taken care of it and he'd also remedied her distrust in him. She would take care of him again and report to her Kage, probably escort him back with the help of others before he was fully recovered where he would then be interrogated and then imprisoned.

He should kill her.

While she was still so innocent looking and pretty and endearing as a child's portrait but feminine as a noblewoman – he should kill her with decapitation with a cleaned blade. While she trusted him with her feelings and thoughts and weaknesses, he could whisper to her a native lullaby and strangle her to eternal sleep.

He should kill her. He could kill her.

Or he could continue to hold her. He wouldn't be able to for much longer at any rate. He felt that maybe this once in his rather lengthy life, that he could be spoilt with humanity that many shinobi had lost so long ago they couldn't even remember if they had had it. She was one of the few who still retained hers…but she was young and youth dwindled away.

Maybe Sasori was being greedy in more than the aspect of vanity, and perhaps the reason why this girl wasn't dead yet was because he wanted to steal a piece of her youth. Youth was the one thing in this world that couldn't be kept…or resurrected.

Sasori ran his fingers through her hair and watched strands run through his fingers like black water. Large white eyes looked at him, still rimmed in pink and she waited for an answer.

"I wonder," he responded, returning to stare at the roots hanging from the cave ceiling.

When her breathing evened out, Sasori knew she was out like a light. She fell asleep with her small fingers clutching at the hem of sleeve like a child and murmuring things in her sleep. Dreaming of what, Sasori wondered, when he saw her frown.

Was she dreaming of reaching up in the night sky and plucking the moon from it, eating it, to show her loyalty to this boy? What was the boy doing, Sasori thought when the frown got deeper, but walking from her showy display?

Why was she dreaming of him when obviously he only showed her the back of his head instead of an unseen constricting creature called love? She didn't cry and eventually her brows smoothed, but she still mumbled broken syllables of _the boy's_ name.

Sasori stared down at her for a long while, after night fell and when dawn was peeking a curious rose eye over the rock.

Passing the sleepless, dreamless, almost half-hypnotic phase by staring at her young lines, smooth cheeks and the bags beneath her large eyes and staring at her naked youth.

His free arm, the one not buried in her hair, reached over and the knuckle of his index finger went across the sloping plane of her left cheek, over the bridge of her nose and to the other cheek. It ghosted over her and her face crinkled like a rabbit's.

Tracing a phantom path over her face in a theme of no direction, he went beneath her bottom lip and stopped.

Being an Akatsuki and shinobi meant that he was not a proper human; that he liked to kill, he liked money and he liked fear and power. Being this meant he was the monster mothers based their frightening bedtime stories on. Indeed, he was one of the most despicable, inhuman, vile, monstrous humans to have ever walked.

…

A lapse in judgment happened and he was left with a decision. He could smooth his knuckle over her bottom lip, trail across the line that separated her lips and circle her top lip – which would undoubtedly wake her and from there…nature would probably take its course.

Or stop where he was, roll her over so he couldn't see her face and decisively ignore her as best as he could.

Akasuna no Sasori was a man who never denied himself the finer qualities in life; food, bedding, tools of the trade…

Red eyes stared at her mouth, balancing his thoughts for the moment. He was, unfortunately for her, not a man who denied himself.

His knuckle went over the pink tissue and in an instinctive female response, her body curled slightly and her lips parted. He leaned forward and ignored the straining in his back and torso, tensing and releasing unblocked chakra to the pointed paths.

Barely an inch – that was all the distance left between them and Sasori could feel her breath on his mouth – it was exquisitely erotic in its own right. He was not a man who denied himself; a monster in his own inhuman ways but…

Why was there hesitation in his basic action – a primal reaction any creature felt? The organ in his chest gave a hard beat suddenly and Sasori remained in his position; half-twisted over the girl's body while he still pillowed her head on an arm.

_How old was she?_

The thought struck Sasori like an impromptu slap. Not nearly old enough for him, in normal cases – she was fifteen or sixteen. How old was he? Far too old for her at any rate. An old saying came to mind, robbing the cradle with the baby fast asleep.

His lids lowered and he kept staring, but less intense. Robbing the cradle…the age difference between them was ridiculous for him to be in such a position. Stealing a piece of her was unwarrantedly cruel and in all actuality horrible. It may traumatize her in her later years.

Her breath across his mouth – he could smell her.

He slanted his mouth across hers and pressed hard – maybe a passive aggressive scolding for making him think about silly repercussions. Her eyes opened wide and wider and he saw the veins crawl under her skin. Her arms, immobile beneath his weight, began to struggle to free themselves.

He pressed harder and let his weight drop more, his other arm keeping the one that was about the wiggle away down, pinning her wrist with surprising strength.

Sasori pulled away and stared at his landmark – an angry reddish purple color, swollen and then at the indignant face around it. "Y-Y-You," her stutter worsened. A blush went from her cheeks, to the tips of her ears and down her neck.

For some reason, he felt boyish and not so old now. He compared that his insides were what a schoolboy probably felt like after kissing a girl. It obviously wasn't his first, but it was her first – and damn his vanity for popping up and nearly ruining the moment, but it hissed that it was better than the _boy's_ would've been.

Hinata went immobile beneath him and stared at him with such impossibly wide eyes that it looked as though her eyeballs would pop out. Her blush was still very strong. A thin sheen, barely there and unsurprisingly Sasori knew what it was from, perspiration shone on her face and neck.

The moment of silence was awkward between them until Hinata licked her lips, a nervous gesture on her part but the redness on her magnified three fold when Sasori's eyes, narrower and predatory followed its movement. "Y-You…" she couldn't grasp any words. "L-Let me u-up," she said, as demandingly as she could in her position.

Sasori's lips tugged downward slightly and he rolled his weight off her and was back on his back again – with pains all the way down. "I um I-I need to l-l-leave now," she stuttered and wouldn't make eye contact.

A test was needed to appraise the situation.

She was rising but his hand was still closed about her wrist and he tugged at her sharply, spinning her and causing her to land on his chest with an uncomfortable soft yelp.

He stared at her and she stared back. His eyes; narrow and still predatory, her eyes; wide and bewildered.

Sasori leaned forward, quickly and pressed his mouth to the corner of her lips for a much gentler approach to the matter. Her eyes crossed to watch him and the wrist still captured by his hand struggled for freedom.

He gradually dragged his mouth across the slope of her cheek and stopped before her ear. "I told you; hurt passes quickly."

Her struggles became a little more adamant and he released her without complaint.

Now standing, she looked down at him with those eyes, with that blush, with his landmark and she didn't say anything. Turning, she fled clumsily and ran, slipping over loose rocks. Sasori watched her until she vanished from his sight and plopped down again.

The organ in his chest gave an abrupt thump-thump and the redhead curled his fists in sudden ire. He should have killed her when he had the chance, but she stopped any thought or attempt on her life without even waking up.

Sasori felt that he hated her.

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Next time; it's the last day of physical therapy and days in the cave, but not the end.

Close to the end kiddies!


	8. Fall

Sting

O.O omg this has been sitting for what? Over a year? Jesus, if anyone is still reading this story or at all interested in it, I will be shocked and amazed and terribly grateful for any kind of patience. And if anyone has questions or anything, please ask them and I will respond. Btw, this isn't the last chapter, okay?

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**The curtains have fallen, he knows, and can't keep her from falling as well. **

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The loss of humanity and gentle youth was something all shinobi had in common – it was their place of understanding. Sasori lost his humanity long ago, in many ways and had given it up willingly for a pedestal he truthfully doubted existed. Nonetheless, he'd grown much more powerful, cunning, devastatingly cruel and unusual. He was the epitome of a shinobi, in a shallow comparison.

Sasori cracked his knuckles and felt the power start ebbing at his thighs, feeling it trickle down like water from rocks. It was slow, but the awakened limbs were responding, barely. The struggle against the Konoha kunoichi had helped to heighten his blood pressure, increase his heartbeat and in doing so, allowed his chakra veins to relax, uncoil themselves. Soon, he would be able to activate his internal weapons, his blades, flame throwers, poisonous senbon and he'd be able to probably avoid capture.

And float along the nowhere stream of nothingness that his life depended upon.

His boat into familiar territory had been cut off, a strange unforeseen obstacle blotting his way. A strange water creature that would bump occasionally on the side of his vessel during his course down the stream, the thing would simply get bigger, and would probably eventually outgrow his boat.

Akasuna no Sasori realized this, and with the realization came the understanding that he would have to kill her, to continue a rather endless and almost pointless life that would lead an equally pointless and endless quest for an invisible throne.

He inhaled, and exhaled remembering the pieces of his life with Chiyo-baasan, and his mannequin parents and the eventual misguided madness that led to his shedding his flesh and blood body for a lethal wooden masterpiece thought up by a madman. He was a ninja – a paid killer in the shadow and dark. Unlike mercenaries who had a specific code of who and what not to kill, ninja did not. Ninja would indiscriminately kill anyone from an adult to a child to a mother holding a child. Who a person was, and what their role may be mattered not to a ninja who was being paid.

It was a lifestyle that consistently showed the uglier side of people; those willing to use their children as shields, or their friends or family members or random pedestrians caught in crossfire. No matter what anyone said, a shinobi thrived in the dark, on the dark. A shinobi caught outside the set circle was a dead one.

Her death would at least be quick. That he could be sure of. He wouldn't break her jaw, or cut her Achilles tendons to watch her crawl from him, nor would he slice off the tips of her fingers and force her to engage in her hand-to-hand combat with him. With his strength returning at such a rapid pace, he could easily crush her, asphyxiate her or with a katana, he could slit her throat. It would be quick and painless. If only to not see her cry.

She would be back today; midday to dusk and it would be the last time he or she would ever be in the cave alive. She may bring backup from Suna to do as such. Konoha shinobi were notably soft on their prisoners compared to Suna. As desert people, they knew the harsh nature of the world. Once she was finished, they would have no qualms taking his down – fatally if it came down to it.

Suna shinobi were harder, naturally and their children were made of tougher things than rain and leaves. They were made of sand and heat and stone.

Konoha was of tree bark and water.

The girl, Hinata, was something gentler and easier to tear and break.

Sasori spread his palm out and sat up slowly, ignoring the pangs of pain rippling through him and instead concentrating on something else. Would it be easy? Would it be so easy to draw a blade across her throat and watch her gasp and bleed out? Would it be easy to hold her down with sheer strength and weight and watch her lips turn blue, watch the light in her eyes drain?

Would it?

Before the cave, before the care, before the thoughts that leaked through and wonderings, the what-ifs, yes it would have. He could have killed her easily had he not been here, had he not grown attached to her. The only remedy to this situation was to kill her. He himself had to kill her, to assure no atrocities were done to her body, no desecrations of any kind were committed, and to be certain that her death would be quick and painless.

The twilight of the sun made his hand glow as he held it up to the light. She would be here soon. Sasori rubbed his palms together and pumped his newly regained chakra into his legs, forcing the coils to uncurl a little, to breathe and he let them spasm painfully before her pumped them again – repeating the process until they unraveled themselves.

Gritting his teeth and pushing his body, harder, harder, harder; _beyond_, Sasori was not going to be taken prisoner.

When he made his move it was going to have to be quick, fast and well plotted. She would bring others, and they would have to die. For a brief moment, Sasori wondered if the _boy_ was going to accompany her. It sent a brutish thrill through him.

He shoved the thoughts away because they would soon have no place in his head to remain. Time melted in a kaleidoscope.

He lost track of it much too often with her around anymore.

Twilight turned to an orange-red colored dusk and Sasori was shaking all over. The chakra forcefully shoved and pushed through his veins was proving to be too much of a task to undertake well but there was nothing else he could do.

Against the cave walls, a shadow danced in the dim light and there was the telltale crunch of gravel. Footsteps – not a singular set, but plural, perhaps three others were with the girl. Closer, closer, Sasori closed his eyes and lay back down softly, keeping his eyes closed. He listened to the slow beat of his heart. Today was the final day.

She was here.

"Ah, S-S-Sasori-san, you have other…visitors," she murmured near him and he opened his eyes to slits to observe them. A rope of momentary hate and wrath incurred in him at her words. Suna shinobi had accompanied her. Their eyes were distrustful and narrow; they wore cloth over their heads and neck to prevent sunburn. They were silent and watchful like a trio of guard dogs.

He'd have to kill them first in order to get to the Hyuuga, else they would make her death messy – and he didn't want her to have an uncomfortable or sloppy death. It would be clean, neat and quick. He looked into her eyes and he wondered what those big, big white eyes saw that made them widen. Perhaps a sixth sense that foretold of a coming death? Maybe. Either way, powerful bloodline or not – she was not getting away.

He readied himself.

Veins would curl at her temples like vines up a castle wall and in a moment, she would see it all – his faded weakness and new deadliness. She would see everything he had not shown her before in a moment.

For now, she stared at him in a kind of bemusement. She knew something was about to happen. The shinobi behind her merely looked on, waiting, and watching.

"Hinata," he murmured to her softly, gently, as if he was cradling the words. She leaned in a little closer. "If you give me a minute, I will tell you another story." She blinked and it was that blink that she made her mistake. Butterfly strokes over white parchment, kissing and Sasori wanted to capture that moment of beauty in her and show it to her; immortalized, but only death was immortal. It was inevitable.

This was inevitable.

He blurred into movement, rusty and not altogether completely coordinated but he still fared better than they because they were still underestimating him. He tossed Hinata behind him, sending her crumpling into an adjacent cave wall, head bouncing off the rock. He flipped slightly clumsily and kicked out at the nearest shinobi before darting away from a senbon attack from her partner. One of the shinobi drew out a tanto and sliced at him, he dodged and sent a brutal punch to his throat, cutting off the Suna nin's air, closing his throat and sending him flying into a wall with a sickening crack from his spinal cord.

Sasori spun and released the locks on the blades in his arms, another small burst of chakra pouring out unsteadily – almost dangerously.

He moved then, onto the kunoichi who gripped a double headed axe and swung at him powerfully, muscles rippling with the movement. Sasori dodged and drove one of the blades through the wrist holding the axe. She writhed like an angry cat and screamed in her pain. Sasori twisted the blade and ripped through her hand viciously, cleaving her whole hand, up to the end of her middle finger, in half. The flesh and bone sagged poorly and she kept screaming.

Sensing an attack from behind, Sasori turned and dodged her enraged teammate's kick, though his toe caught the edge of Sasori's rib. Face twisted in wrath, Sasori's opponent fought to close the gap in order to kill him but Sasori, much more aged even though noticeably weaker due to his condition, was able to keep him at bay using twists, spins and flips.

He unlocked what little supply of senbon he had left and waited, aiming for the shinobi's chest so the poison would spread faster instead of slowly fester.

Behind his bulk, Sasori saw Hinata behind him; her Byakugan activated and throat bare of her scarf now, showing her purple and yellow bruises. He grit his teeth.

Difficult girl.

Sasori was then the one who closed to gap and unleashed the senbon; five of them driving into the man's chest and the other five, his very last ones driving into the wall next to him. The Suna shinobi snarled and ripped the senbon out, and moved the same time Hinata did; with her palms out. Sasori felt a harsh kick drive home in his back and nearly screamed from the pain of his still recovering spine being attacked.

The woman's blonde hair curled around her savage face and she readied herself for another kick, letting her useless arm dangle. Sasori went low and ignored the throb of his spine, and sliced up, catching her calf and splicing it in half for the most part; enjoying her screams. He felt himself smile. Yes. He missed this.

Using his sheer brute strength, he flung the woman at Hinata who stopped her charge in favor of fumbling to catch the bleeding and mortally wounded woman. The man roared and Sasori dodged a meaty fist's swing to the side. He crouched low and sprung up, twisting and ending up behind him. It only took a second.

The blade of his left arm drove deep into the man's lower spine and the blade in his right rammed straight through his skull.

A death gargle and he fell limp. Sasori let him slide off his blades and stared down at Hinata and the dying kunoichi in her arms. Blood flecked his Akatsuki cloak, his arms, his face, his hair.

Hinata's bottom lip trembled and tears shone in her eyes, but in true aristocracy she held herself straight and proud and not a single tear slipped. The woman was hissing weak, wheezing curses at him but Sasori ignored her. He advanced slowly.

"I can tell you the story now," he said evenly, as if he just hadn't caused a gruesome scene of mutilation and murder.

Hinata coughed and gagged, "_Shut up_," she snapped, "Shut up I don't want to hear another-another word o-out of your poisonous mouth." Her eyes were rimmed in red. The woman clutched onto her forearm with her good hand. "Murderer," she hissed, angry and frightened and confused – betrayed even. How could she feel betrayed? She knew all along what he was; what he was capable of _doing_ even.

"Sh-sh-sh," he placated though it did no good. "Once upon a time," he said softly, ignoring the woman shouting at him in her pain and fury, concentrating solely on Hinata. He picked a foreign tale he'd picked up from Kumo that now seemed too terribly ironic for it to be truly entertaining. "A wolf came across a moonflower, which would only bloom at night, and he asked it, why it bloomed only then. The flower answered, "Because I love the moon and all else in the night." The wolf, a selfish and greedy creature to begin with, asked it, "Does that include me?" to which the flower said, "Yes."

Sasori looked at Hinata and she looked at him, the woman was dead in her arms and going cold – one of the stray senbon had hit her in the throat. Hinata looked paralyzed. Eyes wide, mouth agape.

"The wolf, usually the target of loathing, found this incredibly refreshing, and came to visit whenever the flower would bloom. One day, when he caught a small bird nibbling on its petals when it was blooming, he snatched up the bird and ate it. The flower was aghast. "Why did you do that?" it cried, horrified. "Because it was eating you," the wolf replied. "She was going to use me to build her nest," the flower asserted. The wolf was confused, "You would have died."

"Yes I would have," the flower agreed. "But I loved her too much to say no." The wolf grew angry and frustrated. "I thought you loved me," he said. "I do," the flower said, "But I love others just as much as I do you, wolf," it said.

Sasori watched Hinata's reactions. She was beginning to understand.

"The wolf reached a terrible, ultimate decision. "I don't want you to hurt," he insisted. The moonflower seemed confused. "I'm going to do this because I don't want you to love anyone else," the wolf said, before he ripped the moonflower from its vines and swallowed it down."

Hinata looked down at the woman's face and sucked in a large breath. She laid the woman to the side gently. Hinata stood on shaky legs, and activated her bloodline limit yet again. She widened her stance and pressed her palms before her.

Sasori didn't budge. He waited and cocked his head to the side gently. It would be over in just a moment. "Hinata," she flinched, "Don't fight it, it will just hurt more." He soothed and she stiffened, pursing her lips and fighting back the urge to sob when he saw her eyes dart at the three bodies surrounding her.

"I-I am not letting you leave this cave a-alive," she said with a kind of finality about her that made Sasori's lips twitch. This sort of determination made her charming and hateful all at once.

Sasori felt his heartbeat in dread now, even as he displayed a sweet smile, "What a coincidence, neither am I." With that, he charged straight at her looking very much like a juggernaut to Hinata, and he strayed from her hands that now flew as she struggled to keep up. He was careful to not cut her with the blades. He used to foot and pressed on the back of her knee, causing her to fall. He caught her pinned her and jarred her head with a swift hit that caused her bloodline limit to dissipate.

Her face pressed against the rocks, she struggled beneath him and Sasori swallowed down the lump of what was to come. There was no avoiding this.

He pressed his cheek to hers and didn't he react when she flinched away violently, instead clinging to her tighter and forcing her to press closer to him. "There is no way around this, for I have thought of one to avoid this route. You can hate me for this, but no matter the end result will be the same. I will not cage you and I will not force you to adapt to my lifestyle though I would very much like to, and I won't have you hunted should anyone find our situation."

Hinata trembled beneath him, terrified and angry and hurt. Sasori shushed her gently and placed his chin atop her head. "It is kindest to be cruel," he whispered, "And it is for that reason, that I am willing to be your devil." Sasori waited patiently once he finished.

"I-If you want m-me to beg for my l-l-life, I won't," she said, words slightly muffled by the rock.

Sasori nodded, "I know. You're better than that."

She sounded like she bit back a sob. Sasori listened to her frantic heartbeat. "W-Will it b-b-be quick, Sasori-san?" he couldn't tell if she had spat his name out or if she had just sobbed it out.

"Yes," he said calmly. His fingers twitched and something withered away in him.

"D-do you pro-promise?" she turned her head slightly to look at him and her mouth ghosted over his cheek by a hair's breadth. She sounded like a child needing reassurance that the monster in the closet really wasn't there. Something cried out in the dark and died clawing its way up his throat.

"Yes, I promise, now close your eyes," he murmured against her temple. Her eyes slid shut and Sasori clenched his teeth, stilled the shakiness in his body. He struck; hard and fast and she fell limp beneath him.

Sasori closed his eyes and retracted his blades.

It was over.

It was all over.


	9. Rebirth

**Sting**

_Rebirth_

LAST CHAPTER! Hahahaha OMG it's over. Curiously, I'm very glad but also quite sad that it's come to an end. Also – side note; I may be posting a follow-up one shot of "Sting" but let me know what you think about that.

**ww** posed two good questions: **1)** Most of legends, I made up myself because I'm a dork like that, however, the one with the girl eating the moon was based off of a Chinese folktale about vanity and beauty. I rearranged parts of it and changed the meaning to suit the story. **2)** Now, Sasori was left unguarded for so long partially because he couldn't move and without anyone "fixing" his chakra veins, he wouldn't be able to regenerate them anyway. Hinata was taking care of him because of the Byakugan and because though his body was damaged, it was figured that the chakra veins were much worse off and his body would heal properly though his chakra veins wouldn't because they'd need proper care.

Also, I am totally, pleasantly surprised that almost no one thought about hurting me due to the end of the last chapter. But. All of you MAY hate me because of the outcome of this chapter, and considering it's the last chapter…well. Anyway. Last chapter, hope you like it and that you can suspend your disbelief for this chapter. So please don't stab me in the eye with a spork.

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**From the deep underground, she breathed. **

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Sakura hated the desert more than ever, if that were even possible. It wasn't her favorite climate naturally – she was used to a moister temperature or else her skin dried. It also gave her an uncomfortable rash around her ribs if she didn't use ointment. However, this wasn't a normal hate. It was the hate that was spawned from the possibility that the desert might have eaten one of Konoha's own.

The small team cell that had been sent with Hinata to retrieve Akasuna no Sasori (Sakura had been floored when she heard that he had survived the attack and a little more than angry to hear that they had been working to heal the bastard) never returned. The current Kazekage of the Sand; Gaara, said that he had sent them out that evening and they had yet to return. It wouldn't usually have been a high alert yet, but because of the precarious circumstance, it was considered one now.

A small team that consisted of herself, Naruto and Temari was sent to recover the missing shinobi and the Akatsuki member after a three hour lapse had gone by. Recover them, assist them or bring their bodies back. The thought of recovering lifeless corpses – one of them possibly being one of the Rookie Nine – made her stomach churn.

Currently, Temari was tracking them through the sands, following invisible foot prints and indicators; mostly out of formality. She knew where the cave was, but was merely making sure that there had been no detours. While Temari bent over to kick at a rock, looking at the dampness – saliva, someone had spit on it, Sakura couldn't help but ask. "What do you think happened?" it was a stupid question, but it was borne out of anger and concern.

Temari, despite her cutting edge personality, seemed to allow it to slide because of that. "The chasm is just up ahead. I can't see that they took any other detours." She ignored Sakura's question completely and it was all right for the pink haired medic – she preferred no answer to a grim one. Naruto, throughout the whole trip, had been curiously quiet; withdrawing himself. But, Sakura reminded herself, he'd gotten quite close to Hinata after he beat the ever loving hell out of her cousin. She was one of his few friends.

Sakura kept quiet, wondering why the hell Tsunade and the Kazekage would dare to send Hinata out, all alone, for such a long time. She reasoned that perhaps they had underestimated him. Like she had. The thought filled her with hot oil. Her fists clenched and a tick appeared in her jaw.

The chasm dropped down into several caves and jagged rocks. The three shinobi dropped down gracefully. Barely a rock was stirred in their wake and Temari shifted her weight once she was presented to The Cave. Her dark, harsh catty green eyes narrowed as she took in the surrounding and her nose twitched. The scent of blood was not quite old but not fresh. It was heady and plentiful. Her lips thinned and she looked over at the two Konoha shinobi. "I'm going in first, be ready," was all she said before she walked in slowly, a kunai under each hand. The scent from the cave – rusty, metallic and bittersweet was growing stronger as she stepped through the threshold, breathing in just a bit. She held back her gag reflex.

She spotted unmoving forms instantaneously and counted them: three bodies and all of them bore the symbol of Sunagakure. On her far left was the visual of a crumpled a man with no seeming injuries, but nonetheless he looked to be dead. Temari walked toward him and pressed two fingers to his pulse point, and finding none, she continued her inspection. Another man, flat on his stomach bore the crusted blood on his back like a target and his head had a gaping hole in it; thin in width but a good two or so inches in length. Temari's eyes slid to the farthest end of the cave and she saw the woman who was worse off than the other two. Her arm had been hacked neatly down the middle, to the tip of her middle finger and her calf was spliced in a half as well. A stray senbon stuck out of her neck.

The missing nin was nowhere to be found and Temari's teeth grinded together. There was also the lack of a fourth body that disturbed her. Had the Konoha girl up and _left_ with him? Unless…perhaps Akasuna no Sasori had wanted a memento of the girl whose care he'd been under and perhaps he'd wanted to make a puppet out of her. Temari forced the thought away. For now, she was MIA not dead and therefore she would be treated neither as a traitor nor as a body. Kneeling next to each of the bodies, she took their headbands and double checked beneath the padded linen to see that their dog tags were still in them. She wove the three headbands around her belt and walked out of the cave to see Sakura and Naruto waiting, looking grim and pensive.

"Three dead, Sasori is missing and the Hyuuga," their eyes focused on her intensely, "Is missing as well. Her body wasn't in the cave." She saw that they released a breath they'd been holding and held back her sneer. No grieving for the Suna nin was necessary, per usual.

Naruto managed to make Temari's brows raise slightly, "The three, what about them?"

Temari met his gaze. "We'll have to come back for them."

"Can you track her Temari?" Naruto's voice came through, dark blue eyes intense with emotion and for a moment Temari was hypnotized by the sheer ferocity in those eyes. This was what had forced her brother to overcome the Shukaku. She shook herself from her hypnosis though and looked to the ground. She crouched down and rubbed sand and grit between her fingers. A small, pliable ball of grit came forth and it was darker, more colored. She dropped it and brushed her fingers over a rock, overturning it and found a dried blood spot.

Her lips twisted. A furrow came between her brows and then she frowned, continuing to follow the odd trail of blood droplets on the gravel and rocks. Her sandals crunched over the grit. She heard the two behind her follow her closely. Temari ignored them and thought to herself, going back and forth through theories like the movement of a pendulum.

Sasori was cocky and arrogant, certainly but he wouldn't butcher her here, at this site, would he? Assuming, of course, that he wanted to create a puppet out of the girl. There was the other off hand chance that perhaps he wasn't looking for a tool to carve from her corpse but this was merely anger at perhaps being underestimated? Temari felt something in her shiver coldly. The man was a monstrosity and whatever he'd done to the girl was perhaps the most horrid of all. Temari's brows drew together in a much more bunched, severely perturbed way. She drew herself up suddenly and stared down. The grit and rock beneath her was loose. Unnaturally so. She tensed and she felt a shudder run under her feet. The shudder was feeble and almost imperceptible but it was there nonetheless.

She backed up silently and slapped a hand over Naruto's mouth when he opened it. Something small and weak burst forth from beneath the ground.

It was tiny, pink and soft and wriggled like a worm. Temari felt her color drain when she realized what it was.

Naruto inhaled sharply and slapped Temari's arm away, diving down without a thought and began digging in handfuls. "Hold on! Hinata if you can hear me just hold on okay?!" his digging increased and rocks, sharp and small cut at his fingers in his desperation.

Sakura blinked, shook her head as if coming out of a daze and was at his side in a moment and Temari knelt beside them. The three of them dug viciously, unmindful of the cuts that were getting from the sediments slicing their fingers, their palms, they continued on heedless. A whole hand showed through first and it weakly grasped at the air blindly, looking for something to hang on to. Sakura slid her hand into the searching hand and gave a reassuring squeeze before she pulled back just as quickly and dug with a new passion. Dark hair followed the hand and part of an arm.

Temari dug in gently, scooping around the sides of the head while Naruto backed off to the other side to resume his fierce digging. Sakura helped Temari scoop out the sediment from the body within. A pale forehead was the fruit of their labor and Naruto, Temari noticed was crying and as soon as he started crying, Sakura began to cry as well. Temari scowled faintly. How did these Konoha shinobi _survive_?

The back of Temari's hand brushed something and she stopped before she began scooping at that in a hurry. A startled, gurgling gasp met her. A face was forming. The outline of a human body was following it quickly due to Naruto's determination to dig her out. A neck, obscured by wet grit, shoulders, and an arm still outstretched to the sky, legs, feet. A human had been under the dirt.

Temari quickly brushed away the remaining dirt and saw white, white eyes staring at her. Sakura shoved Temari out of the way unmindful of the grunt the other girl gave, and with her tremendous strength, shoved her hands beneath the girl's head in the hardened dirt and began to pull up. "Naruto, do you see her hips?" Naruto nodded "Good, don't grab any lower than that. We may strain something and I don't know where she may be injured." Naruto quickly moved his hands beneath the girl's hips, "Okay, now lift!" they did, gently as if she would break, which she may very well have at that point. Gravel and silt filtered off her body and landed in sprinkles. Temari moved back to give the Konoha shinobi room.

Sakura's hands came away red and the medic hissed at the sight of Hinata's throat. Despite being buried beneath rock and gravel, having her throat slit, Hinata was still alive. While the _how_ of it was intriguing and begged an answer, it wasn't of any importance at this moment. Healing the wound was. Her hands went over the girl's neck and the green glow spilled forth, enveloping her injury. Hinata's breath didn't gurgle as much and the wound was closing, for with every breath Sakura heard her take, she heard the wheeze of air escaping through the hole in her throat lessening. At least, Sakura reasoned while she pressed more chakra into it, the blood had clotted earlier.

Hinata coughed, spat out bloodied phlegm and shuddered, eyes rolling in her head. "Temari, keep her awake," Sakura's voice came in strong and demanding. Temari grabbed the Hyuuga girl's hand and pinched the skin between two fingers. She inhaled sharply and gripped Temari's hand. Temari jerked back but returned the grip firmly. The girl held on to her like a frightened child would. But, Temari thought with glum reasoning, anyone could be a frightened child when faced with Akasuna no Sasori.

She eyed the girl skeptically. Sasori was not one to leave his victims alive, save Sakura who had won the battle. Obviously Sasori wasn't in the best condition to fight, but he was still one of the most dangerous ninja out there. Even at his current bar of strength, he could have easily killed her.

Yet she remained alive. Temari kept her grip on the girl while Naruto was crying and holding her other hand, patting her arm and saying how glad he was she was alive and that Sakura was going to patch her right up. Sakura would occasionally brush a stray hair from the girl's sweating forehead and murmur something comforting while she did her best to heal up her throat.

Temari watched it unfold and stared down at the Hyuuga. How _had_ she survived?

Once Sakura had depleted her chakra and the wound was closed up, Temari drew her fan and said that she would fly the Hyuuga back to the medic bay in Suna. Naruto agreed and hefted a weary Sakura in a piggy back.

Temari's thoughts would once in a while be directed at the Hyuuga but not so much. Her lips thinned at the lost prospect of an obtained Akatsuki member. Tsunade, overriding Gaara who had been previously indisposed of, had said that sending in Hinata only would be the best course of action, if only to get him to possibly relax. She'd been attempting to sugarcoat it, Temari thought, but…looking back at the pale Hyuuga she was holding the waist of so she wouldn't take an accidental tumble, perhaps it may have worked. Not completely, and most certainly not the way Tsunade had wanted it to, but it had.

The fan dipped down once Temari spotted the hospital and she slung the arm of the Hyuuga over her neck and closed her fan, sweeping it behind her and she half dragged the girl to the hospital, snapping at a nearby nurse once she entered the hospital to get a medic _now_. Three nurses came to collect the girl and Temari let her go, and she saw several medics follow though there really was no need. Sakura had finished it up and the wound was closed though Temari had felt that the girl's chakra was completely exhausted so there was of course that lesser but still quite dangerous risk.

She saw Naruto and Sakura enter the building and immediately Naruto harassed one of the nurses into telling him where his friend was. Temari walked over to them and cleared her throat. Naruto's attention diverted, the nurse skittered away and Sakura, from his back looked up at Temari. "You should probably send word to your Hokage; I'm going to tell Gaara that Sasori has escaped and that there are deceased to collect." She turned on her heel and was about to leave before she paused and said, "You may want to ask the Hyuuga how she managed to get out alive before you write the letter to your Hokage though; so she won't have to be interrogated immediately upon arrival."

Temari left without another word, intent on seeing her brother about the predicament they'd been landed in.

Sakura huffed and sighed, rubbing one eye with a clenched fist. "Let's wait in the lobby Naruto. They definitely won't let us in right now. Her chakra was dangerously low and she may have other injuries I wasn't able to treat."

Naruto let her down and she sat herself in a chair with aplomb. Naruto took a seat next to her and scrunched his brows in thought. "How did Hinata survive having her throat cut?" it was partially rhetorical and also a true question directed at his friend.

Sakura leaned on her palm, thinking. "Her chakra was extremely depleted but…to have been able to have survived a throat slitting." Sakura pursed her lips in concentration. She recalled the cut across the pale skin, "The slash wasn't very deep, it wasn't quite what I'd consider shallow but it wasn't deep enough for her to just choke on her blood immediately." That in and of itself was bizarre – if Sakura hadn't known who was responsible for all of it, she would have mistook it for an elementary killing.

She closed her eyes and tried to think of a suitable scenario to fit.

"She may have not had any chance to fight Sasori at all." Her lip curled in a sneer at the thought of the redheaded madman. "He may have slit her throat in haste; maybe he thought he was running short on time? So…having chakra enough left over, Hinata used it to at least clog the blood so she wouldn't bleed out." Sakura rolled her head on her shoulders, trying in vain to relax.

"Underground…there's no air. The earth is too compacted to allow air to breathe in, so, in theory if Hinata had a good, precise hold on her chakra, she might have been able to channel a direct airway from her lungs straight to the outside. In theory, maybe," Sakura sighed and pinched between her eyes. "By doing that though – Sasori must not have been gone long if she were able to keep it up. It wouldn't have taken a lot of chakra, but the control over the airway would have been tedious to keep." Sakura tilted her head in thought, thinking aloud while Naruto listened with his ears and not his mouth, for once. "She may have held her breath on and off in order to allow her chakra to recover."

Naruto was silent and Sakura looked over at him inquisitively. "Why did he bury her?" his voice was soft and quiet, perhaps even disturbed.

Sakura sat back and stared at the empty seats across of her. She had no answer to that question, no matter how hard she thought about it. "I don't know."

The sight of seeing a friend with a slit throat and being buried deep enough where the native scavengers wouldn't dig was a paradox.

Sakura leaned on her fist but still couldn't come up with a suitable answer for Naruto.

The sky outside was black with the dark of night and the sands rose and fell with high winds.


End file.
